UC-NRLF 


II        I 


SB    2^5    7&c] 


THE 


ORIGIN   AND    EXPANSION 


OK  THE 


SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


By   H.    CLAY   TRUMBULL 


i  AN  EXCERPT  FROM  "YALE  LECTURES  ON  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL' 
3Y  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 


PHILADELPHIA 


THE 


ORIGIN   AND    EXPANSION 


OF  THE 


SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


BY   H.    CLAY   TRUMBULL 


BEING  AN  EXCERPT  FROM  "YALE  LECTURES  ON  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL' 
BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 


PHILADELPHIA 

THE  SUNDAY  SCHOOL  TIMES  CO. 
1906 


T7 


"NERAL 


Copyright,  1888,  by 
H.  CLAY  TRUMBULL 


Copyright,  1906,  by 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


LECTURE  I. 

THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL:    ITS  JEWISH  ORIGIN  AND 
ITS  CHRISTIAN  ADOPTION. 


1  HH.-U-l 


THE  SUNDA  Y- SCHOOL :    ITS  JEWISH  ORIGIN  AND 
ITS  CHRISTIAN  ADOPTION. 

Definition  of  a  Sunday-school. —  Rabbinical  Traditions  of  its  Prime- 
val Prominence. — Old  Testament  Light  on  its  Pathway. —  Its 
Mentions  in  Ancient  History. —  Its  Prominence  in  the  Syna- 
gogue Plans. —  Its  Primal  Curriculum. —  Its  Essential  Methods 
of  Working. — Its  Fundamental  Importance  in  the  Jewish  Econ- 
omy.— Jesus  as  a  Scholar  in  the  Sunday-school. — As  a  Teacher 
there. —  His  Methods  of  Teaching. —  His  Command  to  Start 
Sunday-schools  Everywhere. — Apostolic  Sunday-school  Work. 
— Sunday-schools  as  the  Basis  of  the  Christian  Church. 

The  Sunday-school:  Its  Origin,  Mission,  Methods, 
and  Auxiliaries ;  this  is  the  subject  of  a  series  of  lec- 
tures which  I  am  to  deliver  here  at  the  invitation  of  the 
honored  Faculty  of  Yale  Divinity  School.  And,  as  pre- 
liminary to  an  intelligent  discussion  of  the  theme,  it  is 
important  to  arrive  at  a  definition  of  the  term  "  Sunday- 
school,"  as  that  term  is  to  be  understood  and  employed 
in  this  discussion. 

A  Sunday-school  is  an  agency  of  the  Church,  by  which 
the  Word  of  God  is  taught  interlocutorily,  or  catecheti- 
cally,  to  children  and  other  learners  clustered  in  groups 
or  classes  under  separate  teachers ;  all  these  groups  or 
classes  being  associated  under  a  common  head.  Herein 
the  Sunday-school  is  differentiated  from  the  catechismal 

3 


4  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

general  service,  from  the  expository  Bible  lecture,  from 
the  children's  meeting,  and  from  any  school  for  secular 
instruction  on  the  first  day  of  the  week.  Its  source  of 
authority  is  God's  Church;  its  subject-matter  of  study 
is  the  Bible ;  its  form  of  teaching  includes  a  free  use  of 
question  and  answer;  its  membership  includes  children; 
its  arrangement  is  by  groups  clustering  severally  around 
individual  teachers,  as  component  portions  of  a  unified 
whole.  Any  one  of  these  particulars  lacking,  a  school 
held  on  Sunday  fails  of  being  specifically  a  Sunday- 
school.  All  of  these  particulars  being  found,  a  gathering 
is  substantially  a  Sunday-school,  on  whatever  day  of  the 
week  it  assembles,  or  by  whatsoever  name  it  be  called. 

That  the  Sunday-school  in  its  essential  characteristics, 
as  thus  defined,  was  a  prominent  feature  in  the  economy 
of  the  Jewish  Church,  and  that  it  was  included  as  an 
integral  factor  of  the  Christian  Church  in  the  declared 
plans  of  the  divine  Founder  of  that  church,  would  seem 
to  be  evident  in  the  light  of  the  plain  facts  of  history — 
sacred  and  secular.  It  is  to  those  facts  that  I  invite  fresh 
attention  just  here. 

The  origin  of  the  Sunday-school,  or  of  this  catechetical 
Bible-school,  like  the  origin  of  the  synagogue,  is  not 
fixed  with  accuracy  in  Jewish  history.  Traditions  of 
both  these  religious  agencies  run  far  back  of  the  trust- 
worthy records ;  but  even  these  traditions  have  a  certain 
value,  as  indicative  of  the  earlier  existence  of  the  insti- 
tutions about  which  they  are  found  already  clustering, 
(with  a  deeply  rooted  popular  confidence  in  their  verity,) 
when  the  institutions  themselves  have  their  first  distinct 
record.  Hence  the  multiplied  traditions  of  the  promi- 
nence and  the  power  of  the  synagogue  Bible-school  in 


ITS  JEWISH  ORIGIN.  5 

the  earlier  ages  of  the  world's  story,  which  are  to  be 
found  recorded  in  the  Talmud  and  the  Targums,  are  of 
interest  as  giving  an  air  of  antiquity  to  that  agency  of 
instruction  when  first  it  appears  in  unmistakable  plainness 
as  an  established  historical  fact,  surrounded  by  many 
myths  and  legends  of  its  primeval  honor  and  usefulness. 

The  Rabbis  tell  us  that  Methuselah  was  a  teacher  of 
the  Mishna,  before  the  Flood;1  that,  after  the  Deluge, 
Shem  and  Eber  had  a  House  of  Instruction  where  the 
Halacha  was  studied;2  that  Abraham  was  a  student  of 
the  Torah  when  he  was  three  years  old,3  and  that  he 
was  afterward  under  the  teaching  of  Melchizedek  in  mat- 
ters concerning  the  priesthood;4  that  young  Jacob  as  a 
good  boy  did  go  to  the  Bible-school,  while  Esau  as  a  bad 
boy  did  not;6  that  Dinah  the  daughter  of  Jacob  came  to 
grief6  through  playing  truant  from  the  Bible-school  while 
her  brothers  were  in  attendance  there;7  that  among  the 
pupils  of  Moses  in  his  great  Bible-school  were  his  father- 
in-law  Jethro  and  young  Joshua,  and  that  the  latter  was 
preferred  above  the  sons  of  Moses,  as  his  successor,  be- 
cause of  his  greater  zeal  and  fidelity  in  the  Bible-school 
exercises;8  that  the  victory  of  Deborah  and  Barak  re- 
opened the  schools  for  Bible  study,  which  had  been 
closed  by  the  Canaanites;9  that  Samuel  conducted  Bible- 
schools  which  were  continued  to  the  days  of  Elisha  and 

1  Yalqut  on  Gen.,  12  a.     See,  also,  Delitzsch -Weber's  Syst.  der  Altsynag. 
Patast.  Theol.,  p.  34. 

*Targ.  Jon.  on  Gen.  22:  19;   24:  62.     Bereshith  Rabba,  ch.  84;  comp. 
ch.  56  and  ch.  63.  a  Bereshith  Rabba,  ch.  95. 

4  Bereshith  Rabba,  ch.  43.    Yalqut  on  Gen.,  19  c.     5  Bereshith  Rabba,  ch.  63 

•  Gen.  34:  1  ff.  \  Qoheleth  Rabba,  93  a. 

8  Yalqut  on  Exod.,  76  a  ;  on  Josh.,  3  a.     Comp.  also  Berakhoth,  63  b. 
•  Targ.  Jon.  on  Judg.  5 :  2. 


6  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

beyond;1  that  wicked  King  Ahaz  had  the  Bible-schools 
for  children  closed  in  order  to  exterminate  the  religion 
of  Moses ;  that  good  King  Hezekiah,  on  the  other  hand, 
not  only  fostered  the  Bible-school  system,2  but  person- 
ally bore  his  own  children  to  receive  instruction  in  one 
of  these  schools;3  and  finally  that  the  prophecy  of  Hag- 
gai  concerning  the  greater  glory  of  the  second  temple4 
had  reference  to  the  Bible  teaching  which  was  to  be 
carried  on  there,  and  which,  by  means  of  the  synagogues 
and  Bible-schools,  was  to  be  extended  near  and  far.5  All 
this  is  mere  fanciful  tradition,  it  is  true ;  but  even  as  tra- 
dition it  has  an  interest  through  what  it  shows  of  the 
estimation  in  which  the  Bible-school  was  held  by  the 
Rabbis,  at  the  time  of  the  recording  of  these  steadily  gath- 
ering traditions  concerning  its  ancient  place  and  power. 

In  the  line  of  gleams  of  light  from  the  Old  Testament 
text  on  this  pathway  of  rabbinical  tradition,  we  find,  in 
Genesis,6  a  reference  to  Abraham's  three  hundred  and 
eighteen  instructed7  retainers.    In  the  Chronicles,  we  see 

1  Targ.  Jon.  on  i  Sam.  19 :  18  f. 

2  2  Chron.  28  :  24 ;   29 :  3.     See  Rashi,  in  loco ;  also  Molitor's  Philos.  d. 
Gesch.,  Part  I.,  p.  155. 

3  Berakhoth,  10  a,  b.     Menorath  Ha-maor,  iii.,  2,  2.  *  Hag.  2:  9. 
5  Comp.  Shir  Rabba  on  Cant.  7:  12,  13  ;  Yalqut,  in  loco  ;  Erubin,  21  a. 

6  Gen.  14:  14. 
7  The  Hebrew  word  (chaneekk)  translated  in  our  English  Bible  "  trained," 
includes  in  its  meaning  the  idea  of  a  training  in  religion  as  well  as  in  a  use  of 
weapons ;  and  its  use  in  this  place  would  presuppose  a  process  of  school 
instruction  under  Abraham's  oversight.  (Comp.  Gesenius's  Thesaurus,  s.  v., 
with  citation  from  Kimchi ;  Fleischer,  in  Levy's  Neuhebr.  Lex.,  s.  v. ;  Well- 
hausen's  Skizz.  und  Vorarb.,  Heft  3,  p.  154;  Dillmann's  Comm.  z.  Gen.,  in 
loco;  Buxtorf's  Lex.  Heb.  et  Chald.,  s.  v.;  Schaff-Lange's  Comm.,  in  loco, 
with  citation  from  Wordsworth  :  "  Abram  had  trained  them  in  spiritual  things 
in  the  service  of  God,  as  well  as  in  fidelity  to  himself;  see  chap.  18  :  19  ;  24: 
12-49.")     Junius  and  Tremellius,  in  the  Genevan  Bible  of  1630,  say  thai 


ITS  JEWISH  ORIGIN.  7 

that  when  Jehoshaphat  was  working  reforms  in  his  land, 
the  princes  and  the  priests  and  the  Levites  "  taught  in 
Judah,  having  the  book  of  the  law  of  the  Lord  with 
them ;  and  they  went  about  throughout  all  the  cities  of 
Judah,  and  taught  among  the  people."1  In  Nehemiah2 
we  have  a  completer  exhibit  of  actual  methods  of  Bible 
instruction,  in  the  record  of  a  great  open-air  Bible-school 
in  Jerusalem,  after  the  return  of  the  Jews  from  captivity. 
Ezra  was  the  superintendent  in  this  school.  His  assist- 
ing teachers  are  mentioned  by  name.  The  opening 
prayer,  the  responsive  service,  and  the  details  of  class 
teaching,  are  all  described,  as  if  in  illustration  of  the  cus- 
tom in  such  a  gathering  then,  and  thenceforward,  in  the 
Holy  Land. 

Coming  down  to  a  time  when  we  have  contempo- 
raneous records  to  aid  us,  at  a  point  where  the  Bible 
narrative  is  lacking  in  fullness  of  detail,  we  find  Josephus 
claiming  that,  from  the  days  of  Moses,  it  was  a  custom 
of  the  Jews  to  assemble  in  their  synagogues  every  Sab- 
bath, not  only  to  hear  the  law,  but  "to  learn  it  accurately," 
and  that  so  thorough  is  this  instruction  of  the  young  in 
the  teachings  of  the  law,  that,  as  he  expresses  it,  "  if  any 
one  of  us  [Jews]  should  be  questioned  concerning  the 
laws,  he  would  more  easily  repeat  all  than  his  own  name."3 
This  certainly  is  evidence  that  these  weekly  gatherings 

these  servants  of  Abram  were  M  instructed  concerning  the  right  of  this  expe- 
dition, and  concerning  religious  knowledge."  Payne  Smith  (Ellicott's  O.  T. 
Comtn.,  at  Gen.  4:  17)  points  out  that  "  in  old  times  the  ideas  of  training  and 
dedication  were  closely  allied,  because  teaching  generally  took  the  form  of 
initiation  into  sacred  rites,  and  one  so  initiated  [or  trained]  was  regarded  as 
a  consecrated  person." 

1  2  Chron.  17:  7-9.  «  Xoh.  8 :  i-B. 

*  Contra  Ap.,  ii.,  17,  18.     Comp.  i.,  12;  Antiq.t  iv.,  8,  12. 


8  THE  SUNDA  Y-SCHOOL  : 

for  Bible  study  were  not  a  very  new  thing  in  the  days  of 
Josephus.  We  find  Philo,  also,  who  even  antedates  Jose- 
phus,  affirming  that  the  synagogues  of  the  Jews  were 
really  "  houses  of  instruction,"  and  that  with  the  help  of 
these  agencies  the  Jews  were,  "  by  their  parents,  tutors, 
and  teachers,"  instructed  in  the  knowledge  of  the  law 
"  from  their  earliest  youth,"  so  that  "  they  bear  the  image 
of  the  law  in  their  souls."1  Moreover,  with  all  the  unhis- 
toric  character  of  the  Talmud  and  the  other  rabbinical 
writings,  there  are  given  in  them  many  items  of  informa- 
tion concerning  the  times  of  their  compiling,  and  the 
times  just  before,  which  are  not  to  be  passed  over  lightly 
in  an  investigation  like  this.  Competent  and  careful  schol- 
ars of  this  literature  have  brought  out  facts  which  justify 
the  statements  which  I  now  make  in  this  connection. 

According  to  the  Rabbis  it  was  about  80-70  B.  C.  that 
Simon  ben  Shetach,  as  president  of  the  Sanhedrin,  estab- 
lished—  or,  as  some  would  claim,  he  re-established — a 
system  of  religious  schools  in  conjunction  with  the  local 
synagogues  throughout  Palestine,  making  attendance  at 
them  obligatory.2  Whatever  question  there  may  be  as  to 
the  personality  of  this  Simon  ben  Shetach,  there  would 
seem  to  be  good  reason  for  believing  that  this  special 
work  which  is  ascribed  to  him  was  wrought  by  some 
person  or  persons  as  early  as  the  date  to  which  he  is 
assigned.  "  Eighty  years  before  Christ,"  says  Deutsch, 
"  schools  flourished  throughout  the  length  and  breadth 

1  Vita  Mosis,  i.,  27  (Mang.  II.,  168).  Legat.  ad  Caium,  $$  16,  31  (Mang. 
II.,  S62,  577)- 

a  Jerus.  Kethuboth,  viii.,  11.  Ginsburg,  art.  "Education,"  in  Alexander- 
Kitto's  Cyc.  of  Bib.  Lit.  Schurer's  Hist,  of  the  Jewish  People,  Div.  II., 
Vol.  II.,  \  27,  p.  49.     Hamburger's  Real-Encyc,  II.,  672  (note  1),  1102. 


ITS  JEWISH  ORIGIN.  9 

of  the  land; — education  had  been  made  compulsory;"1 
and  this  statement  represents  the  modern  view  of  Jew- 
ish scholars  generally.  Additional  honor  in  this  line  is 
again  ascribed  by  the  Rabbis  to  Joshua  ben  Gamla  (that 
is,  Jesus  the  son  of  Gamaliel),  who  was  high-priest  about 
63-65  A.  D.,  and  of  whom  Josephus  makes  frequent  men- 
tion. He  is  said  to  have  "enacted  that  teachers  should 
be  appointed  in  every  province  and  in  every  town,  and 
[that]  children  of  six  or  seven  years  old  [should  be] 
brought  to  them."2  This  is  believed  by  many  to  have 
been  a  re-enacting  of  laws  of  an  earlier  date,  which  had 
fallen  into  neglect  in  the  progress  of  time.  Certain  it  is  I 
that,  at  the  latest,  in  the  second  century  after  Christ,  the 
records  of  the  Mishna  assume  the  existence  of  elementary 
religious  schools  in  connection  with  the  synagogues ;  not 
as  recently  established,  but  as  a  well-known  institution.3 

Thus,  from  the  evidence  of  Philo  and  of  Josephus,  and 
from  the  incidental  proofs  furnished  in  the  assumed  state 
of  things  according  to  the  earliest  records  of  the  Tal- 
mud, we  have  every  reason  to  believe,  and  none  to  doubt, 
that  a  system  of  Bible -schools  in  connection  with  the 
synagogues  of  Palestine  was  a  recognized  feature  of  the 
Jewish  economy  at  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era. 
Describing  the  influences  which  were  about  a  Jewish 
child  at  this  period,  Edersheim  says:  "There  can  be 
no  reasonable  doubt  that  at  that  time  such  schools 
existed  throughout  the  land."*     Schurer,  who  is  little 

1  Literary  Remains,  p.  23.  Comp.  Jost's  Allg.  Gesch.  d.  Israel.  Volk.,  Vol. 
II.,  p.  13,  note. 

7  Schiircr's  Hist.,  Div.  II.,  Vol.  II.,  g  27,  p.  49;  also  Vol.  I.,  \  23,  p.  201. 
»  Ibid.,  Vol.  II.,  I  27,  p.  49. 

*  Life  and  Times  of  Jesus  the  Messiah,  I.,  230.  Comp.  Sketches  of  Jewish 
Social  Life,  p.  118. 


IO  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

inclined  to  give  weight  to  mere  tradition,  or  to  accept 
any  point  which  will  bear  challenging,  says  that  while 
the  education  of  Jewish  children  in  the  teachings  of  the 
law  "  was,  in  the  first  place,  the  duty  and  task  of  parents, 
it  appears  that,  even  in  the  age  of  Christ,  care  was  taken 
for  the  instruction  of  youth  by  the  erection  of  schools  on 
the  part  of  the  community."1 

Ginsburg  finds  added  proof  of  the  growth  in  promi- 
nence and  favor  of  these  elementary  Bible-schools  at 
an  earlier  date  than  our  era,  in  their  impress  upon  the 
Hebrew  language  of  the  times.  "  So  popular  did  these 
schools  [which  are  ascribed  to  Simon  ben  Shetach] 
become,"  he  says,  "that  whilst  in  the  pre-exile  period 


1  Hist.,  Div.  II.,  Vol.  II.,  #  27,  pp.  48-50.  Reuss  {Geschichte  der  Heiligen 
Schriften  Alten  Test.,  p.  677)  says  of  the  Pharisees  in  the  days  of  Christ: 
"  The  most  powerful  lever  of  their  activity  was  the  school."  Geikie  {Life  and 
Words  of  Christ,  I.,  172)  says:  "  It  cannot  be  doubted  that  boys'  schools 
were  already  general  in  the  time  of  Christ."  Merrill  {Galilee  in  the  Titne  of 
Christ,  p.  91)  in  combating  the  claim  that  there  was  at  that  time  in  Palestine 
any  system  of  popular  education,  in  our  modern  understanding  of  the  term 
"  education,"  says  :  "  The  only  schools  were  fhose  connected  with  the  syna- 
gogues. The  only  school-book  was  the  Hebrew  Scriptures.  A  synagogue 
presupposed  a  school,  just  as  in  our  country  a  church  presupposes  a  Sunday- 
school.  Church  and  district-school  [the  New  England  term  for  a  neighborhood 
public  school]  is  not  a  parallel  to  the  Jewish  system  of  things,  but  church  and 
Sunday-school  is."  While  these  pages  are  being  put  in  type,  I  see,  for  the 
first  time,  Stapfer's  Palestine  in  the  Time  of  Christ,  in  which  again  the  sug- 
gestion is  made  of  a  likeness  of  the  ancient  Jewish  schools  to  the  modern 
Sunday-schools.  "  What  means  of  instruction,"  he  asks  (p.  142),  "  were  there 
at  Nazareth  between  the  years  4  B.  C.  and  10  A.  D.,  that  is  to  say,  in  the  time 
of  the  Lord's  boyhood?  Was  there  already  a  free  school,  or  class  for  the 
townspeople's  children,  taught  by  the  chazzan?  This  seems  to  us  extremely 
likely,  though  we  have  no  positive  proof.  Perhaps  on  the  Sabbath  day  there 
was  a  catechising,  or  what  we  should  now  call  a  Sunday-school."  These  re- 
peated references,  by  writers  from  widely  different  standpoints,  to  this  corres- 
pondence of  the  synagogue  schools  with  the  Sunday-school,  give  proof  that  the 
idea  is  in  no  sense  a  forced  one  from  the  mind  of  a  Sunday-school  specialist. 


ITS  JEWISH  ORIGIN.  1 1 

the  very  name  of  schools  did  not  exist,  we  now  find  in  a 
very  short  time  no  less  than  eleven  different  expressions 
for  'school.'"1  These  expressions  include  such  mean- 
ings as  "house  of  instruction,"  "house  of  learning," 
"  house  of  the  book,"  "  house  of  the  teacher,"  "  house 
of  the  master,"  "the  seat"  (where  the  disciples  sat  at  the 
feet  of  the  master,  or  teacher),  "  an  array "  (where  the 
disciples  were  arranged  according  to  their  seniority  and 
acquirements),  and  "  the  vineyard  "  (the  place  of  refresh- 
ing and  of  fruitfulness). 

That  the  elementary  schools  of  this  Jewish  system  of 
public  education  were  Bible-schools,  corresponding  quite 
closely  in  their  essential  features  with  our  modern  Sunday- 
schools,  is  a  demonstrable  fact.  Indeed,  the  chief  value  of 
the  synagogues  themselves,  in  the  estimation  of  the  Jews, 
was  as  a  means  of  promoting  the  study  and  teaching  of 
the  law.  "The  main  object  of  these  Sabbath-day  assem- 
blages in  the  synagogue,"  says  Schiirer,  "  was  not  public 
worship  in  its  stricter  sense ;  that  is,  not  devotion,  but 
religious  instruction,  and  this  for  an  Israelite  was,  above 
all,  instruction  in  the  law!'1  And  of  the  schools  connected 
with  the  synagogues,  Schiirer  says:  "The  subject  of 
instruction  .  .  .  was  as  good  as  exclusively  the  law ;  for 
only  its  inculcation  in  the  youthful  mind,  and  not  the 
means  of  general  education,  was  the  aim  of  all  this  zeal 

1  Cyc.  of  Bib.  Lit.,  art.  "  Education."  Comp.  Deutsch's  Literary  Re- 
mains, p.  23  f. 

2  Hist.,  Div.  II.,  Vol.  II.,  \  27,  p.  54.  As  illustrative  of  a  common  error  at 
this  point,  Cohen  (cited  by  Geikie,  in  Life  and  Words  of  Christ,  I.,  566,  Notes) 
claims  that  while  there  might  have  been  schools  in  Jerusalem,  there  could  not 
have  been  any  synagogues  there,  "  since  public  worship  could  be  held  there, 
nowhere  but  in  the  Temple."  In  fact,  the  synagogues  were  nowhere  places 
for  public  worship,  in  its  then  understood  sense,  while  the  Temple  yet  stood. 


12  '       THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

for  the  instruction  of  youth.  And  indeed  the  earliest 
instruction  was  in  the  reading  and  inculcation  orffie  text 
scripture '." l 
From  'five  to  ten  years  of  age,  the  Jewish  child  was  to 
study  in  these  schools  the  Bible  text  only.2  It  was  not 
until  after  a  five  years'  course  in  the  plain  teachings  of 
the  Bible  itself,  that  he  was  to  venture  into  the  bewil- 
dering maze  of  what  corresponded  with  our  modern 
catechisms  and  commentaries  and  lesson-helps  generally; 
a  custom  which  is -not  without  its  valuable  suggestion  for 
religious  teachers  of  children  in  our  day.  And  it  is  a 
noteworthy  fact  that  the  Jewish  child's  first  Bible-school 
lessons  were  in  Leviticus,3  rather  than  in  Genesis  or 
Exodus.  An  arrangement  of  that  sort  would  provoke 
no  little  adverse  comment,  if  it  were  proposed  by  an 
International  Lesson  Committee  of  to-day ;  all  of  which 
goes  to  show  that  it  is  not  an  easy  matter  to  satisfy  every- 
body in  the  arranging  of  a  Sunday-school  curriculum. 
From  ten  to  fifteen  years  of  age,  the  Jewish  child's  school 
studies  were  in  the  substance  of  the  Mishna,  or  the  yet 
unwritten  Mosaic  traditions,  with  their  rabbinical  com- 
mentaries, while  still  he  included  the  Bible  text  in  his 
studies.  After  that  age,  the  youth  was  privileged  to  share 
in  those  endless  discussions  of  the  Rabbis  over  the  details 
of  the  Mishna  teaching,  which  later  made  up  the  Gemara, 
or  the  "  completion  "  of  rabbinical  exegesis  and  eisegesis.4 

1  Hist.,  Div.  II.,  Vol.  II.,  §  27,  p.  50. 

a  Buxtorf's  Synag.  Jud.,  p.  140  f.  Taylor's  Sayings  of  the  Jewish  Fathers, 
p.  in.  Comp.  Ginsburg,  in  Cyc.  of  Bib.  Lit.,  art.  "  Education  ;  "  Edersheim's 
Life  and  Times,  I.,  232;  Hamburger's  Real-Encyc,  I.,  340;  and  Strack,  in 
Herzog's  Real-Encyc,  IX.,  389.  s  Wayyiqra  Rabba,  ch.  7. 

*  See  proofs  of  all  this  in  Hamburger,  Herzog,  Edersheim,  and  Ginsburg, 
as  above.     See,  also,  Van  Gelder's  Die  Volkssch.  d.  Jud.  Alterth.,  p.  10  f. 


ITS  JEWISH  ORIGIN.  1 3 

Care  was  taken  that  the  text-books  and  lesson-helps 
in  these  Bible-schools  were  ample  and  trustworthy.1  A 
library  was  attached  to  every  school-house,2  where  copies 
of  the  Holy  Scripture  were  kept  available.  Although  it 
was  deemed  unlawful  to  make  copies  of  small  portions 
of  any  of  the  books  of  Scripture,  an  "  exception  was  made 
of  certain  sections  which  were  copied  for  the  instruction  of 
children." 3  These  selections  included  the  historic  record 
from  the  Creation  to  the  Flood ;  the  first  nine  chapters 
of  Leviticus,  and  the  first  ten  chapters  of  Numbers ; 4 
together  with  the  Shema,5  which,  strictly  speaking,  was 
Deuteronomy  6:  4-9,  but  which  frequently  embraced 
also  Deuteronomy  11:  13-21  and  Numbers  15:  37-41, 
and  the  Hallel  (Psalms  11 3-1 18,  136).6  This  seems  to 
have  been  the  origin  of  the  Sunday-school  lesson-leaf, 
with  its  "fragmentary,"  or  "scrappy,"  portions  of  the 
Bible,  which  is  now  vexing  so  many  pious  minds  as  a 
dangerous  modern  innovation.  It  was  first  authorized 
by  the  Sanhedrin  Uniform  Lesson  Committee,  two  thou- 
sand years  or  so  ago^  Attention  was  also  given  to  the 
fitness  of  the  instruction  from  these  lesson-leaves;  "that 
the  lessons  taught  .  .  .  should  be  in  harmony  with  the 
capacities  and  inclinations  of  the  children ;  practical,  few 
at  a  time,  but  weighty." 7  _/ 

The  location  and  surroundings  of  the  Bible-schools 

1  Pesachim,  112  a. 
1  Jerus.  Megilla,  iii.,  1.     Edersheim's  Life  and  Times,  I.,  233. 
8  Edersheim,  as  above. 
4  Jerus.  Megilla,  as  above.    See,  also,  Sopherim,  v.,  1,  p.  25^/  Gittin,  60  a; 
cited  by  Edersheim,  as  above.    Comp.  Ginsburg,  in  The  Bible  Educator,  I .,  47. 
6  See  Schurer's  Hist.,  Div.  II.,  Vol.  II.,  §  27,  pp.  77,  84  f. 
•  Farrar's  Life  and  Work  0/ St.  Paul,  I.,  43. 
*  Ginsburg,  in  Cyc.  of  Bib.  Lit.,  art.  "  Education."     See,  also,  Berakhoth, 
63  a;  Qiddushin,  82 £;  Wayyiqra  Rabba,  ch.  3. 


14  THE  SUNDA  Y-SCHOOL  : 

were  deemed  not  unimportant  Ordinarily  they  were  in 
the  synagogue  building,  or  in  a  building  attached  to  it ; ' 
but  in  any  event  they  must  not  be  in  a  too  crowded 
quarter,  nor  near  an  insecure  crossing-place  of  a  river.2 
School  hours  were  limited,  and  they  were  variously  pro- 
portioned according  to  different  seasons  of  the  year.2 
Neither  health  nor  safety  for  the  scholars  might  be  dis- 
regarded with  impunity.  One  teacher  must  be  secured 
for  every  twenty  to  twenty-five  children  on  an  average, 
within  the  particular  school  limits.4 

In  addition  to  these  elementary  Bible-schools,  which 

1  See  Vitringa,  De  Synag.  Vet.,  pp.  133-135 ;  also  Hamburger's  Real-Encyc, 
II.,  1 103.  2  Pesachim,  112  a.     Baba  Bathra,  21  a. 

3  Edersheim's  Life  and  Times,  I.,  232. 

4  See  Marcus's  Paedag.  d.  Israel.  Volk.,  II.,  48.  Maimonides  (Yad  Ha- 
chazaqa,  I.,  2)  summarizes  the  rabbinical  requirements  on  the  school  question, 
as  follows:  "  1.  Teachers  of  children  must  be  appointed  in  every  province, 
every  district,  and  every  city.  The  inhabitants  of  a  city,  in  which  the  children 
are  not  sent  to  a  teacher,  are  to  be  interdicted  until  they  engage  a  teacher ; 
and  if  they  persist  in  their  refusal,  the  city  itself  is  to  be  put  under  the  inter- 
dict ;  for  the  world  exists  only  by  the  breath  from  the  lips  of  school  children. 
2.  The  child  has  to  be  sent  to  school,  according  to  its  physical  strength  and 
constitution,  at  its  sixth  or  seventh  year,  but  not  under  six  years  of  age.  .  .  . 
The  teacher  must  instruct  them  all  day  and  a  part  of  the  night,  to  accustom 
them  to  learn  day  and  night.  No  vacations  are  granted  to  the  children,  except 
the  afternoon  preceding  the  Sabbath,  or  the  Holiday,  and  the  holidays  them- 
selves. On  the  Sabbath  nothing  new  must  be  learned,  but  rehearsing  is 
permitted.  Not  even  spare  hours  shall  be  given  them  to  assist  in  the  building 
of  the  holy  temple.  3.  A  teacher,  who  goes  out  and  leaves  the  children  by 
themselves,  or  who  stays  with  them  and  does  some  other  work,  or  is  lazy  in 
his  teaching,  is  included  in  the  curse  pronounced  over  him  *  that  does  the 
work  of  the  Lord  negligently '  (Jer.  48  :  10) ;  therefore,  only  a  God-fearing 
and  conscientious  man  is  to  be  engaged  as  teacher.  4.  Neither  an  unmarried 
man  shall  be  teacher  (on  account  of  the  visits  of  the  mothers  of  the  children), 
nor  women  (on  account  of  the  fathers,  etc.).  5.  There  must  be  one  teacher 
for  every  twenty-five  children.  For  a  number  of  above  forty  an  assistant  is 
necessary  ;  and  for  a  yet  greater  number,  two  assistants.  6.  It  is  allowable  to 
send  a  child  to  another  teacher,  if  the  latter's  care  and  zeal  justify  it ;  but  only 


ITS  JEWISH  ORIGIN.  15 

were  provided  for  in  every  community,  there  were  more 
advanced  Bible-schools  in  connection  with  every  local 
synagogue;1  as  also,  in  some  cases,  in  the  houses  of  the 
Rabbis.2  It  was  in  these  synagogue  Bible-schools  that 
the  Jewish  religious  training  agency  found  its  more  pecu- 
liar likeness  to  our  best  modern  church  Sunday-schools, 
The  outside  Bible-schools  were  as  the  primary  depart- 
ment, and  the  synagogue  Bible-schools  as  the  main 
department  of  the  religious  school  system.  The  regular 
Sahlffih  services  of  the  synagogue  inr1llfW*  n  <Arfiflfl"n" 
service  of  worship  and  an  afternoon  service  of  interlocu- 
tory  Bible^study  for  young  and  old  together,  with  an 
intermission  between  for  dinner;  apian  quite  similar  to 
that  which  prevails  in  many  of  our  best  organized  city 
churches  to-day.3  The  forenoon  service  was  known  as 
the  Beth-ha-Sepher,  the  House  of  the  Book ;  and  the 
afternoon  service  as  the  Beth-ha-Midrash,  the  House  of 
the  Searching,  or  Study.4  The  study-room  was  ordi- 
narily the  upper  room 5  (not  the  basement  room,  as  in 
some  of  our  modern  churches) ;  and  the  school  service 
held  there  was  not  infrequently  spoken  of  as  "  the  syna- 

when  teacher  and  child  live  in  the  same  place  and  no  river  divides  between  their 
houses.  Under  no  consideration  can  a  child  be  brought  into  another  city,  or 
over  a  river  (even  in  the  same  city)  except  the  river  be  safely  bridged  over." 

1  Jems.  Kethuboth,  xiii.,  i.  Lightfoot's  Horae  Hebraicae,  L,  78.  See,  also, 
Vitringa,  De  Synag.  Vet.,  p.  133  ff.,  and  Schiirer's  Hist.,  Div.  II.,  Vol.  I.,  §  25, 
p.  325;  Vol.  II.,  I  27,  p.  53. 

*  Lightfoot's  Hor.  Heb.,  IV.,  15 ;  also  Hausrath's  Hist.  ofN.  T.  Times,  I.,  90. 

»  Lightfoot's  Hor.  Heb.,  II.,  96;  IV.,  123. 

4  Jerus.  Kethuboth,  xiii.,  1  (the  latter  is  here  called  Beth-Talmud).  Light- 
foot's Hor.  Heb.,  I.,  78.     See,  also,  Megilla,  28  b,  cited  in  Hor.  Heb.,  IV.,  280. 

•  Jerus.  Shabbath,  i.,  2.  Lightfoot's  Hor.  Heb.,  II.,  96;  IV.,  14  f.  Comp. 
Succa,  45  a. 


1 6  THE  SUNDA  Y-SCHOOL  : 

gogue," l  inasmuch  as  it  was  a  proper  department  of  the 
synagogue. 

So  important  was  the  Bible-studying  service,  in  the 
estimation  of  the  Rabbis,  that  the  saying  arose:  "The 
righteous  go  from  the  synagogue  to  the  school;"2  or,  as 
we  might  have  it  in  modern  parlance :  "  The  good  man 
goes  from  the  church  to  the  Sunday-school."  It  was 
even  suggested  that  this  is  the  idea  in  Psalm  84 :  7 : 
"They  go  from  strength  to  strength  [from  one  source 
of  strength  to  another  source  of  strength ;  and  so],  every 
one  of  them  appeareth  before  God  in  Zion."  He  who 
went  from  the  house  of  the  book  (the  house  of  reading 
or  the  house  of  prayer)  to  the  house  of  study,  was  said  to 
be  worthy  of  the  presence  of  the  Shekinah.3  And  the 
duty  of  bringing  the  children  from  the  one  service  to 
the  other  was  explicitly  enjoined  by  the  Rabbis.4  One 
of  the  services  was  not  enough  by  itself  (whichever  it 
was),  without  the  other  to  complement  it. 

The  sessions  of  the  elementary  Bible-schools  were  daily, 
except  on  the  Sabbath.5  The  sessions  of  the  synagogue 
Bible-schools,  like  the  synagogue  services,  were  on  Mon- 

*  Lightfoot's  Hor.  Heb.,  II.,  96.  Vitringa,  De  Synag.  Vet.,  p.  133  f.  Tay- 
lor's Sayings  of  the  Jewish  Fathers,  p.  65,  note  27.  Simon's  L '  Educ.  et  V  Instr., 
p.  31.  Sepp's  Das  Leben  Jesu  Christi,  I.,  173.  Hirsch's  Aus  d.  rabb.  Schull., 
p.  8.  That  the  custom  of  looking  upon  the  place  of  social  worship  and  the 
place  of  study  as  one  and  the  same  place  was  a  common  one  among  the 
Jews,  is  indicated  in  the  survival  of  the  term  "  school,"  in  designation  of 
the  synagogue  by  Portuguese  and  German  Jews.  The  same  term  is  similarly 
employed  in  Italy,  as  witnesses  the  designation  in  Leghorn  of  the  synagogue 
street,  as  Via  delta  Scuola. 

2  "  From  the  place  of  prayer  to  the  place  of  study."  Cited  in  the  Qabbal 
istic  book  Zohar.  3  Midrash  Tehillim  on  Psa.  84:  7. 

4  Baba  Bathra,  21  a.     Hamburger's  Real-Encyc,  II.,  1103. 

•  Comp.  Qiddushin,  30  a.    Ginsburg,  in  Cyc.  of  Bib.  Lit.,  art.  "  Education.' 


ITS  JEWISH  ORIGIN.  1 7 

day  and  Thursday,  as  well  as  on  the  Sabbath,  in  order 
that  the  country  people,  when  they  came  into  town  to  do 
their  marketing,  might  have  the  privileges  of  religious 
instruction.1  For  the  same  reason,  sessions  of  these 
Bible-schools  were  also,  at  times,  held  in  some  open 
square,  or  by  the  wayside.2  Tri-weekly  services  of  the 
synagogues,  and  tri-weekly  sessions  of  the  accompanying 
schools,  have,  indeed,  been  continued  down  to  modern 
times  in  some  of  the  more  strict  and  orthodox  Jewish 
communities. 

Synagogues,  with  their  accompanying  Bible-schools, 
were  found  in  all  the  towns  and  villages  of  Palestine,  and 
in  many  Gentile  cities  beyond,  where  any  considerable 
number  of  Jews  had  their  temporary  home.3  In  some 
Palestinian  cities  these  training  agencies  were  multiplied. 
Thus,  for  example,  there  were  at  least  thirteen  synagogues 
and  schools  in  Tiberias;4  and  in  Jerusalem  there  were, 
according  to  one  authority,  four  hundred  and  sixty,  and 
according  to  another,  four  hundred  and  eighty.5  This 
would  give  a  larger  number  of  Sunday-schools  to  Jerusa- 
lem twenty  centuries  ago,  than  are  to  be  found  to-day  in 
Boston,  or  in  New  York,  or  in  Chicago.  But  the  Sunday- 
school  statistics  of  that  day  were  not  even  so  trustworthy 

1Jerus.  Megilla,  iv.,  i;  comp.  i.,  1-3.  Schurer's  Hist.,  Div.  II.,  Vol.  II., 
§  27,  p.  83.  See,  also,  Baba  Qamma,  82  a;  Lightfoot's  Hor.  Heb.,  II.,  93; 
Schiirer,  in  Riehm's  Handworterbuch  des  Biblischen  Altertums,  II.,  1594  £; 
and  Josfs  Allg.  Gesch.  d.  Israel.  Volk.,  II.,  76. 

*  Edersheim's  Life  and  Times,  I.,  231. 

•  Acts9:  2,  20;  13:  5,  14,  15,  43;  14:  1;  15:  21;  17:  i,  17;  18:  4,  7,  8,  17, 
y6;  22: 19;  24: 12;  26:  11. 

4  Berakhoth,  30  b.    Lightfoot's  Hor.  Neb.,  I.,  158. 

*  Jerus.  Kethuboth,  xiii.,  1.  Jerus.  Megilla,  iii.,  1.  Lightfoot's  Hor 
Ueb.,  I.,  78. 


IS  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

as  those  of  the  present  time ;  and  it  is  probable  that  the 
numbers  here  given  are  to  be  taken  symbolically,  or 
gematrially,1  rather  than  literally;2 although  Ginsburg3 
deems  these  figures  not  "at  all  exaggerated."  At  all 
events,  they  go  to  show  that  the  Sunday-school  agency 
was  at  that  time  not  an  insignificant  one  in  the  great 
Jewish  metropolis. 

In  the  ordinary  conduct  of  these  synagogue  Bible- 
schools,  at  a  later  period,  and  presumably  from  an  early 
date,  the  Rabbi  (or  the  superintendent,  as  we  should  call 
him)  occupied  a  seat  on  a  platform,  or  on  cushions,  which 
raised  him  above  the  level  of  the  school-room  floor.  His 
chaberim,  or  colleagues,  or  assisting  teachers  (assistant 
superintendents  as  they  were  in  some  cases),  were  seated 
a  little  lower  than  himself,  although  still  above  the  floor; 
frequently  in  a  semicircle  at  his  right  hand  and  his  left.4 
The  pupils  were  seated  cross-legged,  in  Oriental  fashion, 
on  the  floor ;  literally  at  the  feet  of  their  teachers.5     In 

1  See  Farrar's  Early  Days  of  Christianity,  Bk.  V.,  chap.  28,  £5, 

2  Lightfoot's  Hor.  Heb.,  I.,  78. 

8  In  Cyc.  of  Bib.  Lit.,  art.  "  Synagogue." 

4  See  Godwyn's  Moses  and  Aaron,  p.  30  f. 

8  Joses  ben  Joezer  said,  "  Let  your  house  be  a  meeting-house  for  the  wise; 

and  powder  thyself  in  the  dust  of  their  feet,  and  drink  their  words  with  thirsti- 

ness"  (Pirqe  Aboth,  i.,  4).     Vitringa  understands  this  as  meaning  that  the 

pupils  should  drop  themselves  on  the  ground  which  the  teachers  covered 

with  the  dust  of  their  feet  (De  Synag.  Vet.,  p.  168  f.).    It  is  claimed  that  before 

the  days  of  Gamaliel  the  pupils  stood  before  their  teachers  in  reverence  for 

the  law;  but  that  afterward  they  sat  (Gemara  Megilla,  21  a;   Vitringa,  p. 

166).     This  claim,  however,  is  shown  by  Vitringa,  and  by  Lightfoot  {Hor. 

Heb.,  III.,  46-48),  to  be  not  justified  by  the  facts.     Comp.  Luke  10:  39;  Acts 

22:  3.     In  Sanhedrin,  5,  it  is  said,  "  In  Bitter  there  were  three  teachers,  in 

Yabneh  four,  of  whom  one,  R.  Shimeon,  spoke  also  in  the  presence  of  the 

other  three,  but  seated  on  the  floor;"   meaning  that  while  yet  a  pupil  he 

wras  permitted  at  times  to  teach.     R.  Eliezer  (Megilla,  19}  v«.!4r  "  I  never 


/7S  JEWISH  ORIGIN.  19 


the  larger  schools  there  were,  in  addition  to  the  chaberim, 
or  colleagues,  assistants  known  as  anwraim,  or  speakers, 
or  repeaters ;  corresponding  somewhat  to  monitors  in  the 
English  school  system.  The  truth  to  be  taught  by  these 
speakers  was  whispered  in  their  ears  by  the  Rabbi,  to  be 
spoken  out  by  them  in  a  loud  tone  of  voice.  And  here 
is  the  force  of  the  expression,  "  What  ye  hear  in  the  ear, 
proclaim  upon  the  housetops."  '  In  the  more  primitive 
and  elementary  schools,  the  pupils  sat  on  the  ground  in 
a  semicircle,  facing  their  sitting  teacher.2 

Although  the  traditional  law,  with  its  expositions  by 
the  fathers,  rather  than  the  simple  text  of  the  Bible,  was  the 
more  immediate  subject  of  study,  or  of  discussion,  in  the 
Beth-ha-Midrash,  the  Bible  text  was  supposed  to  be 
the  primary  basis  of  the  "  searching  "  here,  as  it  had  been 
the  exclusive  theme  of  study  in  the  elementary  schools 
which  preceded  this.  And  the  Beth-ha-Midrash  included 
the  young,  as  well  as  older  persons,  among  its  pupils.3 

passed  over  the  heads  of  the  holy  nation ; "   that  is,  over  the  heads  of  the 
pupils  that  sit  on  the  floor  of  the  Beth-ha-Midrash.     See  note  on  this  subject 
in  Taylor's  Sayings  of  the  Jewish  Fathers,  p.  28  f. 
1  Matt.  10:  27. 

*  Maimonides  (cited  by  Vitringa,  p.  166)  says  that  "  the  teacher  sits  at  the 
head,  while  the  disciples  surround  him  in  front,  like  a  wreath,  so  that  all  of 
them  can  see  the  teacher,  and  hear  his  words.  And  the  teacher  is  not  sitting 
on  a  seat  and  his  disciples  on  the  ground ;  but  either  all  sit  on  the  ground, 
or  all  sit  on  seats."  Comp.  Isa.  30:20,  "Thine  eyes  shall  see  thy  teacher" 
(R.  V.,  marg.).  Again,  in  Shir  Kabba  (on  Cant.  6 :  11,  1.  c),  referring  to  the 
pomegranates  in  the  vineyard,  it  is  said :  "  These  are  the  children  that  are 
seated,  and  occupy  themselves  with  the  Torah,  who  sit  in  rows  like  the  grains 
of  the  pomegranate."  For  a  description  of  the  Oriental  schools  of  to-day,  see 
Lane's  The  Modern  Egyptians,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  73-78  ;  Ebcrs's  Egypt,  II.,  64-71; 
Loftie's  A  Ride  in  Egypt,  pp.  182-194 ;  Jessup's  Syrian  Home  Life,  p.  48  f. 

*  Berakhoth,  17  a.  Lightfoot's  Hor,  Heb.,  II.,  95.  Comp.  gloss  in  Shabbath, 
;iS  a,  cited  by  Lightfoot,  III.,  101 ;  and  Hamburger's  Eeal-Encyc,  II., 
676,  1104. 


20  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

In  addition  to  the  opening  and  closing  exercises  of 
worship  which  always  had   their  place  in  these  Bible- 
schools,1  the  method  of  instruction  was  almost  entirely 
interlocutory  and  catechetical.     The  idea  of  attempting 
to  instruct  passive  hearers  by  the  teacher's  continuous 
discourse  does  not  seem  to  have  entered  the  acute  Jewish 
mind.    That  was  a  later  seduction  of  the  Adversary.    On 
this  point  the  evidence  is  overwhelming ;  and  it  is  impor- 
tant that  it  be  recognized  accordingly,  in  view  of  its 
practical  bearing  on  the  whole  system  of  Jewish  and 
Christian  Bible-school  teaching. 
"^  Vitringa  says  :    "  It  was  the  teacher's  [part]  to  listen ; 
and  the  pupil's  [part]  to  question;"2  not  the  teacher's 
part  to  lecture  and  the  scholar's  part  merely  to  hear. 
Again  Vitringa  says:    "The  mode  of  teaching  [that  is, 
one  of  the  modes  of  teaching]  was  this :  the  colleagues 
(wise  men  and  students)  raised  a  question  on  this  or  that 
subject,  while  the  teacher  answered  it  fully  through  an 
interpreter  [speaking  it  low  to  an  amoray  who  would 
repeat  it  aloud  to  the  colleagues] ;  or  again  [as  another 
mode  of  teaching]  the  teacher  himself  began  the  discus- 
sion of  a  theme  raised  by  him." 3     And  whether  it  was 
the  teacher,  or  a  colleague,  or  a  pupil,  who  began  the 
discussion,  it  was  by  the  pupil's  share  in  the  questioning 
that  the  pupil's  chief  gain  as  a  pupil  was  made.     In  Pirqe 
Aboth,  or  the  Sayings  of  the  Fathers,  a  tractate  of  the 
Mishna,  it  is  declared  that  in  order  to  make  the  Torah 
his  own  possession,  a  student  must  not  only  listen  to  it 
attentively,  but  must  have  a  part  in  its  discussion,  and 
must  ask  and  answer  questions  concerning  it,  and  must 

1  Berakhoth,  z6  b,  vj  a.  *  De  Synag.  Vet.,  p.  168.  *  Ibid.,  p.  157. 


ITS  JEWISH  ORIGIN,  21 

repeat  over  what  he  has  heard.1  Lightfoot  cites  Maimon. 
ides  as  saying,  that  in  a  city  where  there  are  not  two  wise 
men,  one  capable  of  instructing,  and  the  other  competent 
to  hear,  and  to  ask  and  answer  questions,  there  cannot  be 
a  true  sanhedrin,  "  although  there  were  a  thousand  Israel- 
ites in  that  city."2  In  other  words,  there  can  be  no  school 
without  a  teacher,  and  no  teaching  without  questioning. 

Says  Ginsburg:3  "The  mode  or  manner  in  which 
instruction  was  communicated  [in  these  Jewish  Bible- 
schools]  was  chiefly  catechetical.  After  the  master  [the 
teacher]  had  delivered  his  dicta  or  theme,  the  disciples 
[the  scholars]  in  turn  asked  different  questions,  which  he 
frequently  answered  by  parables  or  counter  questions.  .  .  . 
Sometimes  the  teacher  introduced  the  subject  by  simply 
asking  a  question  connected  with  the  theme  he  proposed 
to  propound  [as  his  lesson  for  the  day];  the  replies  given 
by  the  different  disciples  [or  scholars]  constituted  the  dis- 
cussion, which  the  master  at  last  terminated  by  declaring 
which  of  the  answers  was  the  most  appropriate.  Thus 
Rabbi  Jochanan  ben  Zakkai  ...  on  one  occasion  wanted 
to  inform  his  disciples  what  was  the  most  desirable  thing 
for  man  to  get.  He  then  asked  them,  'What  is  the  best 
thing  for  man  to  possess?'  One  replied,  'A  kind  na- 
ture;' another,  'A  good  companion;'  another,  'A  good 
neighbor ; '  another, '  The  power  to  foresee  consequences ; ' 
whilst  Rabbi  Eleazer  said,  'A  good  heart'  Whereupon 
Rabbi  Jochanan  remarked,  '  I  prefer  Rabbi  Eleazer's  an- 
swer to  yours;  for  in  it  all  your  answers  are  compre- 
hended.'"4    "All  was  life,  movement,  debate,"  in  these 

1  PirqeAboth,  vi.,  6.  Comp.  Taylor's  Sayings  of  the  Jewish  Fathers,  p. 
113  f.,  and  Marcus's  Paedag.,  II.,  42.  *  Hor.  Ned.,  III.,  48. 

*  In  Cyc.  of  Bib.  Lit.,  art.  "  Education."  *  Pirqe  Aboth,  ii.,  9-12. 


22  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

Bible -schools,  says  Deutsch;1  "question  was  met  by 
counter-question,  answers  were  given  wrapped  up  in  alle- 
gories or  parables ;  the  inquirer  was  led  to  deduce  the 
questionable  point  for  himself  by  analogy." 

Many  indications   are   given  in  the   Talmud  of  the 
fundamental  importance  attached  to  this   interlocutory, 
or  catechetical,  method  of  Bible  teaching,  as  in  contrast 
with  passive  hearing.     Referring  to  the  words  in  Jere- 
miah 23:  29,  "Is  not  my  word  like  as  fire?  saith  the 
Lord,"  Rabbi  Ishmael  is  cited  as  saying :    "  As  the  fire 
does   not  continue  to  burn  on   one  piece  of  wood,  so 
also  the  words  of  the  Torah  cannot  prosper  with  him 
who  has  and  studies  them  for  himself"  2 — all  by  himself. 
Again,  in  answer  to  the  question,  "  Why  is  the  Torah 
like  wood?" — or  a  tree  (as  declared  of  Wisdom  in  Prov- 
erbs 3  :  18,  "  She  is  a  tree  of  life  to  them  that  lay  hold 
on  her  "  ),  it  is  said,  from  Rabbi  Nachman  ben  Yitschaq : 
"As  a  small  piece  of  wood  [when  lighted]  kindles  the 
greater,  so  the  little  ones  among  the  disciples  of  the  wise 
kindle  the  greater  ones  and  sharpen  their  wits."3     And 
one  who  was  himself  a  superintending  Rabbi  testified: 
"  Much  I  have  learned  from  my  teachers ;  more  from  my 
colleagues ;  but  most  of  all  from  my  scholars."4    Again  it 
is  declared  by  a  Rabbi :    "  The  Torah  is  acquired  only  by 
companionship  "  (through  co-work  between  two).5    "  Be- 
rooriah,  the  celebrated  wife  of  Rabbi  Meir,  met  one  of 
her  husband's  pupils  who  studied  silently.    She,  watching 
him,  said,  '  That  which  is  designed  for  all  [the  members 
of  the  body]  must  be  secured  by  expression,  or  it  will 
not  be  secured  in  the  heart.' "  6     Of  another  pupil  it  is 

1  Literary  Remains,  p.  24  f.  2  Taanith,  7  a.  3  Ibid. 

4  Ibid.  ;  also  Makkoth,  10  a.  5  Berakhoth,  63  b.  6  Erubin,  54  b. 


ITS  JEWISH  ORIGIN.  23 

said  that,  not  studying  aloud,  he  forgot  in  three  years  all 
he  had  learned  in  the  school.1  And  Rabbi  Joshua  ben 
Levi  affirmed:  "He  who  teaches  without  having  the 
lesson  repeated  [back  to  him]  aloud  is  like  one  who  sows 
and  does  not  reap."2 

A  responsibility  was  recognized  as  resting  on  the 
Jewish  teacher,  not  only  to  try  to  teach,  but  to  teach. 
Until  he  had  actually  taught  his  scholar,  his  work  was 
practically  a  failure,  or  at  the  best  an  incompleted  purpose. 
Rabba  Raba  said:  "  If  a  lesson  is  not  understood  by  a 
pupil,  the  trouble  is  not  so  much  with  the  pupil  as  with 
the  teacher,  who  fails  to  make  the  lesson  clear  to  that 
scholar."3  Here  is  a  recognition  of  the  fundamental 
truth  that  teaching  a  thing  is  not  merely  telling  that 
thing,  but  is  causing  another  to  know  that  thing.  It 
was  said  of  Rabba  Preda,  "  He  was  ready  to  repeat  his 
teaching  a  hundred  times  to  his  scholars,  if  that  were 
necessary  to  their  understanding  of  it." 4 

Such  prominence,  indeed,  was  given  to  repetition,  or  to 
reviewing,  in  the  synagogue  Bible-schools,  that,  according 
to  one  rule,  "  On  a  Sabbath  only  things  previously  learned 
should  be  repeated,  nothing  new  being  introduced  at  such 
a  time."5  This  would  seem  to  make  the  Sabbath  the 
review  season,  or  the  re-enforcement  season  for  the  entire 

1  Menorath  Ha-maor,  iv.,  1,  5. 

*  Sanhedrin,  99  a.  In  many  Jewish  schools,  as  in  Oriental  schools,  to-day, 
the  pupils,  while  studying,  rock  their  heads  and  bodies  backwards  and  for- 
wards, not  only  as  a  help  to  memory,  but  (as  It  is  claimed)  in  illustration 
of  the  spirit  of  David  when  he  said  (Psa.  35:  10),  "All  my  bones  shall  say. 
Lord,  who  is  liWunto  thee?" 

*  Taanith,  8.  Hamburger's  Real-Encyc,  II.,  672.  Comp.  Qoheleth  Rabtv 
on  Eccl.  10:  15.  *  Erubin,  54  b.    Hamburger,  ibid. 

*  Yore  Dea,  245  ;  cited  in  Hamburger's  Real-Encyc,  II.,  674. 


24  THE  SUNDA  Y-SCHOOL: 


week's  Bible-study.  V  And  so  possessed  were  the  scholars 
supposed  to  be  with  a  living  interest  in  their  lessons  when 
they  came  to  the  Bible-school,  that  a  proverbial  caution 
of  the  Rabbis  was:  "  At  the  coming  in  of  the  teacher  the 
scholars  shall  not  overwhelm  him  with  questions;"1  or, 
as  we  should  express  it,  "  Don't  all  speak  at  once!" 

The  ability  and  readiness  to  ask  questions  fittingly,  as 
well  as  to  answer  them  correctly,  were  indeed  deemed 
an  indispensable  qualification  of  a  Jewish  teacher.  No 
power  of  continuous  discourse  on  his  part  was  a  substi- 
tute for  that.  Of  the  seven  talmudic  requisites  of  an 
educated  man,  five  of  them  bear  directly  on  this  point. 
He_jdlloiojj3e_jnjiaj^  he  will  ask  only  fitting 

vxpi£SJtians ;  he  willjjive  suitable  answers;  he  will  answer 
the  first  thing  first,  and  the  last  thing  last;  and  he  will  can- 
jjjjjly  qonfess  the  limits  of  his  knowledge.2  It  is  even 
asserted  by  the  Kabbis  that  there  are  to  be  Bible-schools 
in  heaven;3  and  that  "just  as  questions  are  asked  and 
answered  in  the  schools  below,  so  questions  are  asked  and 
answered  in  the  schools  above;"4  which  is  only  another 
way  of  asserting  that  neither  on  earth  nor  in  heaven  can 
there  be  any  real  teaching  which  does  not  secure  real 
learning;  that,  while  a  man  can  preach  whftnf  ^y  one 
breeds,  frim  or  nnt|  hp  rp nnpt  teach  unless  some  one  learns. 

"Special  attention  was  given  to  the  culture  of  the 
memory,"  in  the  training  of  Jewish  children,  "  since  for- 

1  Shabbath,  3  a.  See,  also,  Tosephta  Sanhedrin,  ch.  iv. ;  cited  by  Marcus, 
Paedag.,  II.,  50. 

2  Pirqe  Aboth,  v.,  10.  See,  also,  Taylor's  Sayings  of  the  Jewish  Fathers,  p. 
100  f.,  with  note  giving  the  comments  of  R.  Obadiah  of  Sforno. 

3  Qoheleth  Rabba  on  Eccl.  8  :  10. 
4  Qabbalist  R.  Menahem  Reqanati,  in  Comm.  on  Exod.,  ch.  18. 


ITS  JEWISH  ORIGIN.  2$ 

getfulness  might  prove  as  fatal  in  its  consequences  as 
ignorance  or  neglect  of  the  law."1  Even  where  words 
were  to  be  memorized  in  their  literalness,  the  Jewish 
scholar  was  not  left  to  study  by  himself,  nor  was  the 
teacher  contented  with  a  single  repetition  of  the  truth 
he  would  have  learned.  Iteration  and  reiteration  on  the 
teacher's  part,  and  responding  repetitions  on  the  part  of 
the  scholar,  were  insisted  on.2 

An  illustration  of  the  approved  method  in  this  line  is 
given  in  the  talmudic  account  of  the  way  in  which  Moses 
conducted  his  school  for  the  original  teaching  of  the 
Torah  and  the  Mishna:3  "Moses  repaired  to  his  tent, 
followed  by  Aaron,  to  whom  he  communicated  the  re- 
ceived law  and  its  interpretation.  Aaron  then  rose  and 
removed  to  Moses'  right  side ;  whereupon  Aaron's  sons, 
Eleazar  and  Ithamar,  entered,  and  received  the  same  com- 
munication from  Moses,  after  which  they  took  their  seats 
respectively  on  either  side  of  Moses  and  Aaron.  Then 
the  seventy  elders  came,  and  Moses  taught  them  in  the 
same  way  as  he  had  taught  Aaron  and  his  sons.  Finally 
all  the  people  entered — or  every  one  who  had  a  desire 
for  the  knowledge  of  the  Lord — and  Moses  made  them 
also  acquainted  with  these  teachings  of  the  Lord.  In 
this  way  Aaron  had  heard  the  law  from  Moses'  lips  four 
times,  his  sons  three  times,  the  elders  twice,  and  the 
people  once.  Then  Moses  rose  from  among  them,  and 
Aaron   repeated  aloud  what  he  had   [now]  heard  four 

1  Pirqe  Aboth,  iii.,  12.  Chagiga,  9  a.  Qiddushin,  50  b.  See,  also,  Eders- 
heim's  Life  and  Times,  I.,  230. 

*  It  has  been  claimiR,  indeed,  that  if  every  copy  of  the  Talmud  were 
destroyed,  "  any  twelve  learned  Rabbis  would  be  able  to  restore  it  verbatim 
from  memory."  (Gfrorer's  Jahrh.  d.  Heils,  I.,  170;  cited  in  Edersheim's 
Sketches  of  Jewish  Social  Life,  p.  129,  note.)  »  Erubin,  54  b. 


26  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

times,  and  he  left  the  tent.  Then  Aaron's  sons,  who  had 
by  this  time  heard  the  law  four  times  (three  times  by 
Moses  and  once  by  their  father),  repeated  it  aloud  to  the 
audience,  and  they  left.  Thereupon  the  seventy  elders, 
who  also  by  this  time  had  heard  the  same  teachings  four 
times,  repeated  it  to  the  people.  The  people  now  had 
heard  it  four  times  also — once  from  Moses,  once  from 
Aaron,  once  from  Aaron's  sons,  and  finally  from  the 
elders.  Thus  instructed,  they  also  left  the  tent,  teaching 
each  other  what  [of  the  written  law]  they  had  learned,  and 
writing  it  down  [for  they,  also,  must  repeat  it  in  order 
to  make  it  their  own].  The  interpretation  [of  the  law 
as  distinct  from  the  written  law  itself]  they  imprinted  on 
their  minds,  and  delivered  it  orally  to  their  children ;  and 
these  again  to  theirs."  And  thus  it  was  that  the  simplest 
form  of  teaching  by  means  of  memorizing  was  conducted 
among  the  Jews. 

It  was  not  that  these  catechetical  Bible-schools  were 
merely  incidental  to  the  Jewish  life  and  polity ;  they  were 
reckoned  a  very  part  of  the  religious  system  itself,  essen- 
tial to  the  stability  and  perpetuity  of  the  national  existence 
and  character.  Many  a  talmudic  proverbial  saying  might 
be  cited  in  illustration  of  this  truth.  Thus,  for  example : 
"  The  world  continues  to  exist,  only  by  the  breath  of  the 
children  of  the  schools."1     "The  children  must  not  be 

1  Shabbath,  fol.  119  b.  Geikie  (  The  Life  and  Words  of  Christ,  Vol.  I.,  p. 
565,  Notes)  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  Dukes  (in  Rabbinische  Blumenlese, 
104)  explains  this  as  referring  to  "  the  innocence  of  young  children,"  rather 
than  to  the  importance  of  their  education.  But,  even  with  that  meaning,  it  is 
clear  that  the  innocent  children  are,  by  this  talmudic  saying,  reckoned  as  sure 
to  be  in  the  schools  of  the  nation.  Moreover,  Maimonides  (cited  in  note  1, 
p.  14,  ante)  explicitly  applies  this  talmudic  saying  to  the  importance  of  the 
children's  education.  See,  also,  on  this  point,  Van  Gelder's  Die  Volkssch.  d. 
fud.  Alterth.,  p.  3. 


ITS  JEWISH  ORIGIN.  2J 

detained  from  the  schools,  even  though  it  were  to  help 

rebuild  the   temple."1      "T1^jTUf    guardian*  nt  the  rity 

are  the  teachers." 2  "  If  you  would  destroy  the  Jews  you 
must  destroy  their  schools."3  "  He  who  learns  the  Torah 
and  does  not  teach  it,  is  like  a  [fragrant]  myrtle  in  the 
desert,  where  there  is  no  one  to  enjoy  it." 4  "  He  who 
teacheth  a  child  is  like  one  who  writeth  with  ink  on  clean 
paper ;  but  he  who  teacheth  old  persons  is  like  one  who 
writeth  with  ink  on  blotted  paper."5  "  He  who  teaches 
the  Torah  to  the  child  of  his  fellow-man,  is  to  be  looked 
upon,  in  a  scriptural  point  of  view,  as  though  he  had 
begotten  him." 6  "  He  who  refuses  a  pupil  one  lesson 
has,  as  it  were,  robbed  him  of  his  parental  inheritance."  7 
■  He  who  teaches  the  child  of  his  fellow-man  shall  occupy 
a  prominent  place  among  the  saints  above."8  This  last 
aphorism  would  seem  to  be  a  paraphrase  of  the  promise 
in  Daniel,9  which,  in  its  marginal  reading,  is :  "  The  teach- 
ers shall  shine  as  the  brightness  of  the  firmament;  and 
they  that  turn  many  to  righteousness,  as  the  stars,  for- 
ever and  ever." 

A  Bath-Qol  (a  very  voice  of  God)  said  to  the  Jews : 
"  Dearer  to  me  is  the  breath  of  the  school-children,  than 
the  fragrance  of  the  sacrifices  on  the  smoking  altar." 10 

1  Shabbath,  120.  a  Jerus.  Chagiga,  vii.,  7. 

8  Bereshith  Rabba,  ch.  65.     Hamburger's  Real-Encyc.  II.,  1102  f. 

4  Rosh  Ha-shana,  23  a.     Comp.  Buxtorf's  Syn.  Jud.,  p.  139. 

6  This  maxim,  which  has  come  to  be  the  common  property  of  Jewish  and 
Christian  educators  alike,  would  seem  to  be  a  talmudic  rendering  of  the  words 
of  Saul  of  Tarsus,  the  pupil  of  Gamaliel.  It  is  given  in  Pirqe  Aboth  (iv.,  27) 
as  ascribed  to  Elisha  ben  Aboo^kh,  the  great  apostate,  who  is  called  in  the 
rabbinical  writings  acher,  that  is,  "the  other  one,"  after  Jesus  of  Nazareth, 
who  is  spoken  of  in  those  writings  as  otho  ha-eesh,  "  that  man." 

•  Sanhedrin,  19.  '  Cheleq,  91.  8  Shabbath,  33.  9  Dan.  12:  3. 

10  Qoheleth  Rabba  on  Eccl.  9:  7.    Hamburger's  Real-Encyc,  II.,  1103. 


28  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

And  the  Rabbis,  commenting  on  the  words  in  the  psalm 
of  David,  "  Touch  not  my  anointed  ones,  and  do  my 
prophets  no  harm,"1  explained  that  the  Lord's  "anointed 
ones"  are  the  school-children,  and  his  "prophets"  are 
their  teachers.2  God  himself  is  even  represented  by  the 
Rabbis  as  teaching  little  children.  "  What  is  God  doing 
in  the  fourth  part  of  the  day  [the  last  quarter  of  the  day]  ?  " 
asks  R.  Acha.  And  the  answer  is  :  "  He  sits  and  teaches 
children  the  Torah,  as  it  is  said  in  Isaiah  28 :  9,  'Whom 
will  he  teach  knowledge?  and  whom  will  he  make  to 
understand  the  message?  them  that  are  weaned  from 
the  milk,  and  drawn  from  the  breasts.' "  3  To  live  in  a 
community  where  there  was  no  Bible -school  was  for- 
bidden to  the  godly  Jew.4  "A  village  without  a  school 
for  children  ought  to  be  destroyed,"  said  a  talmudic 
authority;5  and  it  was  even  said,  after  the  destruction 
of  Jerusalem,  that  that  disaster  came  because  the  schools 
there — many  as  they  were — were  neglected.6 

And  this  was  the  Bible-school  system  of  the  Jews  in 
Palestine,  at  the  time  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  born 
into  that  land,  to  be  brought  up  there  as  a  Jew.  Bible 
teaching  was  to  begin  at  home.7  At  from  five  to  seven 
years  of  age,  at  the  latest,  the  child  was  to  find  his  place 
in  the  church  Bible-school.8     He  was  there  to  memorize 

1  Psa.  105:  15;  1  Chron.  16:  22. 

2  Kethuboth,  103.     Shabbath,  119.     See,  also,  Yalqut  on  Psa.  105:  15. 

3  Yalqut  on  Isa.,  47  a.       4  Sanhedrin,  17  b.       5  Shabbath,  120.       6  Ibid. 

7  "  Passing  over  the  Old  Testament  period,  we  may  take  it  that,  in  the  days 
of  Christ,  home  teaching  ordinarily  began  when  the  child  was  about  three 
years  old  "  (Edersheim's  Sketches  of  Jewish  Social  Life,  p.  129). 

8  Five  years  of  age  was  the  time  for  an  exceptionally  healthy  and  vigorous 
Jewish  child  to  begin  his  school  study  (Pirqe  Aboth,  v.,  24);  but  with  the 
average  child  six  years  of  age  was  counted  young  enough.     "  There  is  both 


ITS  JEWISH  ORIGIN.  29 

the  words  of  Scripture,  and  he  was  at  the  same  time  to 
come  to  an  understanding  of  its  meaning  through  the 
process  of  familiar  questioning  and  answering.  Later, 
he  was  to  be  a  member  of  the  synagogue  Bible-school ; 
to  share  there  the  benefits  of  that  interlocutory  teach- 
ing which  was  the  only  process  which  the  Jews  deemed 
worthy  of  the  name  of  teaching.  So  far  the  facts  would 
seem  to  be  fairly  established. 

Referring  to  the  elementary  Bible-schools,  such  as  have 
been  here  outlined,  Edersheim  says  : l  "  We  do  not  even 
know  quite  certainly  whether  the  school-system  had,  at 
that  time,  extended  to  far-off  Nazareth;  nor  whether 
the  order  and  method  which  have  been  described  were 
universally  observed  at  that  time.  In  all  probability, 
however,  there  was  such  a  school  at  Nazareth ;  and,  if 
so,  the  Child-Saviour  would  conform  to  the  general  prac- 
tice of  attendance.  We  may  thus,  still  with  deepest 
reverence,  think  of  him  as  learning  his  earliest  earthly 
[Bible-school]  lesson  from  the  Book  of  Leviticus." 

In  the  one  glimpse  that  is  given  us  of  the  childhood  of 
our  Lord,2  he  is  seen  in  one  of  the  more  advanced  Bible- 
schools  of  his  day,  within  the  temple  limits,  at  the  age  of 
twelve  years,  having  a  part  in  its  ordinary  exercises,  in 
accordance  with  the  customs  of  that  time.  "  There  were 
occasions,"  says  Edersheim,3  "  on  which  the  temple  be- 
came virtually,  though  not  formally,  a  Beth-ha-Midrash. 

common  sense  and  sound  experience  in  this  talmudical  saying  (Kethuboth, 
50  [3]),  '  If  you  set  your  child  to  regula^study  before  it  is  six  years  old,  you 
shall  always  have  to  run  after,  and  yet  never  get  hold  of,  it.'  This  chiefly  has 
reference  to  the  irreparable  injury  to  health  caused  by  such  early  strain  upon 
the  mind  "  (Edersheim,  as  above,  p.  105). 

1  Life  and  Times,  I.,  233.       '  Luke  2 :  42-47.       •  Life  and  Times,  I.,  247. 


30  THE  SUNDA  Y- SCHOOL  : 

For  we  read  in  the  Talmud  that  the  members  of  the 
temple  Sanhedrin,  who  on  ordinary  days  sat  as  a  court 
of  appeal,  from  the  close  of  the  morning  to  the  time  of  the 
evening  sacrifice,  were  wont  on  Sabbaths  and  feast-days 
to  come  out  upon  '  the  terrace '  of  the  temple,  and  there 
to  teach.  In  such  popular  instruction  the  utmost  latitude 
of  questioning  would  be  given.  It  is  in  this  audience, 
which  sat  on  the  ground,  surrounding  and  mingling  with 
the  doctors  [the  teachers]  .  .  .  that  we  must  seek  [at 
this  time]  the  child  Jesus." 

There  he  was,  as  the  evangelist  gives  the  record,  "  sit- 
ting in  the  midst  of  the  teachers,  both  hearing  them,  and 
asking  them  questions."  l     It  was  not  that  his  presence 

1  Luke  2 :  46.  This  simple  incident  in  the  Bible  story  has  been  a  fruitful 
theme  of  discussion  among  commentators.  It  has  been  claimed  by  some  that 
the  child  Jesus  here  took  his  place  as  a  teacher  among  teachers,  or  at  least 
assumed  some  other  position  than  that  of  a  mere  learner  (comp.  Lightfoot's 
Hor.  Heb.,  III.,  48  ;  Bishop  Taylor's  Life  of  Christ,  p.  156 ;  Bengel's  Gnomon, 
in  loco ;  Strauss's  New  Life  of  Jesus,  II.,  98  f. ;  De  Wette's  Handb.  z.  N.  T.f 
in  loco  ;  Lange's  Life  of  Jesus,  I.,  322  f. ;  Ewald's  Hist,  of  Israel,  VI.,  187  f. ; 
Sepp's  Das  Leben  Jesu  Christi,  I.,  185 ;  Ellicott's  Life  of  Christ ,  p.  95).  Others 
have  seen  in  the  narrative  only  the  record  of  a  young  learner's  method  in  a 
Jewish  Bible-school  (comp.  Origen's  Opera  Omnia,  Tom.  V.,  p.  158;  Wet- 
stein's  N.  T.  Graec.,  in  loco ;  Rosenmiiller's  Alte  u.  Neue  Morgenland,  VI., 
46;  Neander's  Life  of  Jesus  Christ,  p.  30  f. ;  Olshausen's  Bib.  Comm.,  in 
loco;  Meyer's  N.  T.  Comm.,  in  loco;  Alford's  Greek  Test.,  in  loco;  Stier's 
Words  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  I.,  19  ;  Van  Oosterzee  in  Schaff- Lange's  Bib.  Comm., 
in  loco ;  Andrews's  Life  of  Our  Lord,  p.  102 ;  Keim's  Hist,  of  Jesus  of  Nazara, 
II.,  133  ;  Farrar's  Life  of  Christ,  I.,  74-77  ;  Geikie's  Life  and  Words  of  Christ, 
I.,  226-228 ;  Plumptre,  in  Ellicott's  New  Test.  Comm.  for  Eng.  Readers,  in 
loco).  In  explanation  of  the  supposed  contradiction  in  the  Holy  Child's  being 
only  a  learner,  while  yet  he  is  singled  out  as  in  some  way  in  the  midst  of  the 
teachers,  perhaps  no  more  satisfactory  suggestion  has  been  made  than  that 
which  Godet  proffers  ( Comm.  on  Luke,  in  loco) :  "  The  expression  '  seated  in 
the  midst  of  the  doctors '  proves,  no  doubt,  that  the  child  was  for  the  time 
occupying  a  place  of  honor.  .  .  .  Jesus  had  given  some  remarkable  answer,  or 
put  some  original  question  ;  and,  as  is  the  case  when  a  particularly  intelligent 
pupil  presents  himself,  he  had  attracted,  for  a  moment,  all  the  interest  of  his 


ITS  JEWISH  ORIGIN.  3 1 

there  was  exceptional,  nor  yet  that  his  bearing  a  part  in 
the  ordinary  exercises  of  study  was  to  be  wondered  at. 
So  far  he  was  simply  in  the  line  of  a  Jewish  youth's 
privileges  and  duty.1  But  that  which  was  remarkable  in 
the  case  of  the  Holy  Child  was  his  marvelous  knowledge 
in  the  realm  of  God's  Word,  as  compared  with  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  teachers  surrounding  him.  "All  that  heard 
him  were  amazed  at  his  understanding  and  his  answers."8 
And  so  important  did  he  himself  deem  this  exercise,  that 
he  asked  his  anxious  mother  why  she  had  sought  him 
anywhere  else  than  just  there,  during  his  stay  in  the  holy 
city  as  a  child. 

teachers.  There  is  nothing  in  the  narrative,  when  rightly  understood,  that 
savors  in  the  least  of  an  apotheosis  of  Jesus."  This  is  practically  the  view  of 
Weiss  (Life  of  Christ,  I.,  276)  and  of  Edersheim  (Life  and  Times,  I.,  247  f.). 

1  Josephus  (  Vita,  ch.  2)  claims  to  have  been  often  called  on  by  the  high- 
priests  and  elders  to  give  his  opinion  on  points  of  the  law,  when  he  was  about 
fourteen  years  old.  This  is  commonly  spoken  of  as  a  proof  of  his  egotism  ; 
but  the  egotism  is  in  his  boasting  of  a  fact  which  was  by  no  means  unique,  as  he 
seems  to  have  counted  it.  See  a  reference  to  the  enkindling  power  of  young- 
sters among  Rabbis  at  p.  22,  ante.  The  Rabbis  had  a  saying  (Bammidbar  Rab- 
ba,  14)  that  "  the  word  of  God  out  of  the  mouth  of  a  youngster  is  to  be  received 
as  from  the  mouth  of  a  wise  man,  yea,  as  from  the  mouth  of  an  assembly  of 
wise  men,  yea,  as  from  the  very  Sanhedrin,  yea,  as  from  the  mouth  of  Moses, 
yea,  as  from  the  mouth  of  the  blessed  God  himself."  Even  in  modern  times 
a  bright  youngster  has  attracted  special  prominence  by  his  skill  in  question- 
answering.  Dr.  Rawley,  the  biographer  of  Lord  Bacon,  tells  of  the  promi- 
nence thus  accorded  to  his  hero.  "  Rawley's  story  introduces  us  to  a  child 
of  singular  gravity  and  adroitness,  the  future  Chancellor  and  courtier.  The 
Queen  '  delighted  much  then  to  confer  with  him,  and  to  prove  him  with  ques- 
tions ;  unto  whom  he  delivered  himself  with  that  gravity  and  maturity  above 
his  years,  that  Her  Majesty  would  often  term  hitt  '  The  young  Lord  Keeper.' 
Being  asked  by  the  Queen  how  old  he  was,  he  answered  with  much  discretion, 
being  then  but  aboy,  that  he  was  two  years  younger  than  Her  Majesty's  happy 
reign,  with  which  answer  the  Queen  was  much  taken."  (William  Aldis 
Wright's  Preface  to  Bacon's  Advancement  of  Learning,  p.  vi.  f.). 

1  Luke  2 :  47. 


32  THE  SUNDA  Y- SCHOOL : 

After  this,  when  our  Lord  had  entered  upon  his  public 
ministry,  he  is  spoken  of  again  and  again  as  teaching  in 
the  synagogues,  as  distinct  from  his  preaching  there.  If, 
indeed,  we  were  wholly  unfamiliar  with  the  arrangement 
and  customs  of  the  Jewish  synagogues  in  that  day,  we 
might  be  at  a  loss  as  to  the  difference  between  these 
two  exercises  of  "teaching"  and  "preaching"  within  the 
limits  of  the  same  sacred  structure.  But  knowing  what 
we  do,  it  would  seem  fair  to  infer  that  our  Lord  bore  a 
part  in  the  morning  service  of  worship  and  preaching  in 
the  synagogue,  and  in  the  afternoon  service  of  worship 
and  teaching  in  the  same  synagogue;  in  other  words, 
that  he,  according  to  the  custom  of  the  godly  Jew,  went 
from  the  synagogue  to  the  Bible-school. 

The  evangelist  Matthew,  who  peculiarly  wrote  from  the 
Jewish  stand-point  said,  in  terms  which  all  Jews  would 
understand,  that  "  Jesus  went  about  in  all  Galilee,  teach- 
ing in  their  synagogues,  and  preaching  the  gospel  of  the 
kingdom;"1  teaching  by  that  form  of  instruction  which 
admitted  of  free  interlocutory  play  between  teacher  and 
taught,  and  preaching  by  the  distinct  heralding  of  a 
message  from  God.  And  again,  by  the  same  evangelist 
the  record  stands :  "  Jesus  went  about  all  the  cities  and 
the  villages,  teaching  in  their  synagogues,  and  preaching 
the  gospel  of  the  kingdom."2  Mark  and  Luke,  also, 
repeatedly  distinguish  between  the  "  preaching  "  and  the 
"  teaching  "  of  our  Lord.3  He  is,  moreover,  represented 
in  all  the  Gospels  as  pursuing  this  work  of  "teach- 
ing," wherever  he  might  be;   by  the  wayside,4  by  the 

i  Matt.  4 :  23.  2  Matt.  9 :  35 ;  also  n  :  1. 

3  Mark  1 :  14,  21,  22,  39 ;  Luke  20 :  1. 

*  Mark  6 :  6,  34 ;  10 :  1 ;  Luke  13 :  22 ;  John  4 :  1-42. 


ITS  JEWISH  ORIGIN.  33 

sea,1  in  the  private  house,2  or  in  the  temple  court,3  as  well 
as  in  the  synagogue,4 — teaching  the  Jews  by  that  familiar 
interlocutory  and  inter-colloquial  method  with  which  the 
Jews  were  so  familiar. 

Jnhp    the   baptist   ig   alway*  represented   ^  /fl^faW5 

never  as  teaching.  Even  when  he  gave  particular  instruc- 
tion in  the  line  of  personal  duty,  to  the  soldiers,  to  the 
publicans,  and  to  the  Jewish  people,  he  is  spoken  of  as  a 
preacher.6  But  Jesus  is  represented  as  a  teacher  of  truth, 
in  addition  to  his  mission  as  a  preacher  of  righteousness. 
Thus,  for  example,  when  he  was  at  Jerusalem  at  the  feast 
of  the  tabernacles,  it  is  recorded  of  him :  "  When  it 
was  now  the  midst  of  the  feast  Jesus  went  up  into  the 
temple,  and  taught  [sat  as  the  teacher  of  a  gathered  class 
of  pupils].  The  Jews  therefore  marveled,  saying,  How 
knoweth  this  man  letters,  having  never  learned?  [having 
never  been  the  pupil  of  a  well-known  Rabbi]."7  No  such 
question  as  this  seems  to  have  been  asked  concerning 
John  the  Baptist ;  for  he  was  only  a  preacher.  It  was 
appropriate  concerning  Jesus,  because  he  now  occupied 
the  place  of  a  teacher,  questioning  his  pupils  and  answer- 
ing their  questions. 

We  cannot  suppose  that  all  of  the  questions  asked  of 
or  by  our  Lord,  in  the  progress  of  his  manifold  teaching, 
are  recorded  in  the  Gospel  narratives  preserved  to  us.    If 

1  Mark  2:  13;  4:  i,  2. 
1  Matt.  13  :  36 ;  17 :  25  ;  Mark  9  :  33-50 ;  Luke  7 :  36-50 ;  10 :  38-42 ;  19 :  5-27. 

•  Matt.  21 :  23  to  22 :  46 ;  Mark  12  :  35  ;  14 :  49 ;  Luke  19 :  47 ;  21 :  37 ;  John 
7:  14,  28;  8:2,  20. 

•  Matt.  13 :  54 ;  Mark  6:2;  Luke  4 :  15,  31-33  ;  6:6;  13 :  10 ;  John  6 :  59; 
18:  20. 

6  Matt.  3  :  1-12 ;  Mark  1:1-8;  Luke  3  :  1-9. 

•  Luke  3 :  10-18.  7  john  7  \  i4>  15. 


34  THE  SUNDA  Y- SCHOOL  : 

that  had  been  attempted,  "  I  suppose  that  even  the  world 
itself  would  not  contain  the  books." 1  But  there  is  no 
lack  of  evidence  that  questioning  and  counter-questioning 
entered  freely  into  his  ordinary  teaching  processes. 

Observe,  for  example,  the  record  of  our  Lord's  latest 
exercises  of  teaching  in  the  temple  court,  as  it  is  found  in 
Matthew's  Gospel.2  "  When  he  was  come  into  the  temple, 
the  chief  priests  and  the  elders  of  the  people  came  unto 
him  as  he  was  teaching,  and  said,  [taking  their  part  in 
the  exercise  by  this  question,]  By  what  authority  doest 
thou  these  things  ?  and  who  gave  thee  this  authority  ? 
And  Jesus  answered  and  said  unto  them,  [in  accordance 
with  a  very  common  method  of  response  in  Jewish  Bible- 
school  teaching,]  I  also  will  ask  you  one  [counter]  ques- 
tion, which  if  ye  tell  me,  I  likewise  will  tell  you  by 
what  authority  I  do  these  things.  The  baptism  of  John, 
whence  was  it?  from  heaven  or  from  men?  And  [at 
that  question]  they  [the  questioning  priests  and  elders] 
reasoned  with  themselves,  saying,  If  we  shall  say,  From 
heaven;  he  will  say  unto  us,  Why  then  did  ye  not  believe 
him  ?  But  if  we  shall  say,  From  men ;  we  fear  the  mul- 
titude ;  for  all  hold  John  as  a  prophet.  And  they  answered 
Jesus,  and  said,  We  know  not.  He  also  [then]  said 
unto  them,  Neither  tell  I  you  by  what  authority  I  do 
these  things." 

But  our  Lord's  questionings  were  not  merely,  as  might 
seem  from  this  illustration  so  far,  for  the  purpose  of 
avoiding  a  profitless  discussion  with  his  enemies.  On 
this  occasion,  he  immediately  followed  up  his  silenced 
opposers  with  the  parable  of  the  two  sons  directed  to 

*  John  21 :  25.  *  Matt.  21 :  23  to  23 :  39. 


ITS  JEWISH  ORIGIN.  35 

work  in  their  father's  vineyard;  prefacing  it  with  the 
rhetorical  question,  "  But  what  think  ye?"  and  then  ask- 
ing, categorically,  "  Whether  of  the  twain  did  the  will  of 
his  father?"  Another  parable,  also,  was  then  applied  by 
the  questions,  "  When  therefore  the  lord  of  the  vineyard 
shall  come,  what  will  he  do  unto  those  husbandmen  ? " 
and  "  Did  ye  never  read  in  the  Scriptures?"  Group  after 
group  of  his  nominal  scholars  joined  in  this  questioning, 
and  was  met  according  to  the  spirit  of  the  particular 
inquiry.  Interrupted  at  this  point  for  the  day,  the  teach- 
ing exercise  was  resumed  on  the  following  day.  It  was 
begun  with  a  parable  spoken  by  our  Lord.  At  that  point 
the  Pharisees  came  to  him  with  their  wily  question,  "  Is 
it  lawful  to  give  tribute  unto  Caesar,  or  not?  "  Calling  for  a 
specimen  of  the  tribute  money,  our  Lord  asked,  "  Whose  is 
this  image  and  superscription?"  and  when  they  answered 
"  Caesar's,"  he  added,  "  Render  therefore  unto  Caesar  the 
things  that  are  Caesar's ;  and  unto  God  the  things  that  are 
God's."  It  was  then  the  Sadducees'  turn,  with  their  knotty 
question  about  the  marriage  relation  after  the  resurrection. 
The  question  our  Lord  met  directly  with  an  affirmation 
of  absolute  truth  ;  but  he  followed  this  with  an  instructive 
question  concerning  the  text  of  the  Mosaic  Scriptures, 
which  the  Sadducees  held  to  be  true  and  conclusive :  "  As 
touching  the  resurrection  of  the  dead,  have  ye  not  read 
that  which  was  spoken  unto  you  by  God,  saying,  I  am  the 
God  of  Abraham,  and  the  God  of  Isaac,  and  the  God  of 
Jacob  ?  God  is  not  the  God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living." 
And  so  the  record  of  the  questioning  and  the  answering  \ 
in  that  series  of  teaching  exercises  goes  on,  concerning  the 
law  and  concerning  the  Messiah,  until  it  concludes  with 
the  declaration,  "  And  no  man  was  able  to  answer  him 


$6  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

a  word,  neither  durst  any  man  from  that  day  forth  ask 
him  any  more  questions."  Can  there  be  any  reasonable 
doubt,  in  view  of  such  an  illustration  as  this,  of  the  Jewish 
method  of  interlocutory  teaching  employed  by  our  Lord, 
that  when  our  Lord  is  referred  to  as  "  teaching,"  as  dis- 
tinct from  his  "  preaching,"  we  are  to  understand  that  the 
term  "teaching"  applied  to  the  method  of  his  instruction, 
as  well  as  to  its  substance? 

Obviously,  it  is  in  the  light  of  well-known  Jewish  cus- 
toms, rather  than  only  in  the  light  of  classic  Greek  or 
of  modern  English,  that  we  are  to  interpret  the  terms 
"  teach  "  and  "  teaching,"  in  the  narrative  of  our  Saviour's 
life-course.  It  is  in  the  same  light,  also,  that  we  must  read 
the  Great  Commission,  as  it  stands  in  its  one  undisputed 
authentic  form,  at  the  close  of  the  Gospel  of  the  King- 
dom:1 "  Go  ye  therefore,  and  make  disciples  [scholars]2 
of  all  the  nations,  baptizing  them  into  the  name  of  the 
Father  and  of  the  Son  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost:  teaching3 
them  to  observe  all  things  whatsoever  I  commanded  you : 
and  lo,  I  am  with  you  alway,  even  unto  the  end  of  the 
world."    As  the  Jews  would  have  understood  that  charge, 

1  Matt.  28 :  19,  20. 

2  According  to  the  Talmud  (Pirqe  Aboth,  I.,  1),  one  of  the  three  funda- 
mental duties  of  the  fathers  in  Israel,  as  communicated  by  God  to  Moses,  by- 
Moses  to  Joshua,  by  Joshua  to  the  elders,  by  the  elders  to  the  prophets,  and 
by  the  prophets  to  the  men  of  the  Great  Synagogue,  was  to  "  raise  up  many 
scholars,"  or  to  secure  and  to  train  many  pupils.  Hence,  to  a  Jew,  the  com- 
mand of  our  Lord  to  go  and  make  scholars  of,  or  from  among,  all  the  Gentiles, 
had  a  distinct  and  well-defined  meaning. 

3  "  This  teaching,"  says  Alford,  {Greek  Test.,  in  loco,)  "  is  not  merely  the 
kerugma  of  the  gospel — not  mere  proclamation  of  the  good  news — but  the 
whole  catechetical  office  of  the  Church  upon  and  in  the  baptized.  .  .  .  The 
command  is  to  the  Universal  Church — to  be  performed,  in  the  nature  of 
things,  by  her  ministers  and  teachers." 


ITS  CHRISTIAN  ADOPTION.  37 

and  as  we  have  every  reason  to  suppose  that  our  Lord 
meant  it,  the  direction  therein  is,  to  organize  Bible-schools 
everywhere  as  the  very  basis,  the  initial  form,  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church.  Grouping  scholars — the  child  and  the  child- 
like— in  classes,  under  skilled  teachers,  for  the  study  of 
the  Word  of  God  by  means  of  an  interlocutory  co-work 
between  teacher  and  scholars ;  that  is  the  starting-point 
of  Christ's  Church,  as  he  founded  it.  Whatever  else  is 
added,  these  features  must  not  be  lacking. 

And  it  would  seem  that  this  was  the  way  in  which  the 
Great  Commission  was  understood  by  the  Apostles  and 
their  immediate  successors.  We  find  little  said  in  explicit 
description  of  the  sanctuary  services  of  the  Apostolic 
Church  ;  partly,  doubtless,  because  so  generally  the  well- 
known  synagogue  services  were  simply  adapted  to  the 
necessities  of  the  new  organization.  Schafif  sums  up  the 
whole  case  at  this  point,  when  he  says  concisely:  "As 
the  Christian  Church  rests  historically  on  the  Jewish 
Church,  so  Christian  worship  and  the  congregational 
organization  rest  on  that  of  the  synagogue,  and  cannot 
be  well  understood  without  it."1  Fisher  says,  with  like 
explicitness :  "The  synagogue  served  as  a  model  in  the 
organization  of  churches."2  It  would  be  strange,  pass- 
ing strange,  if  the  Christian  Church,  while  retaining  th^ 
other  main  features  of  the  synagogue,  had  ignored  its 
very  chicfest  feature,  the  Bible-school  service;  especially 
as  the  Great  Commission  laid  pre-eminent  emphasis  on 
the  work  therein  included.  Nor  is  there  reason  for  seri- 
ous question  just  here.  There  are  many  indications  in 
the  Book  of  Acts  and  in  the  Epistles  that  "  teaching," 

1  SchafTs  Hist,  of  the  Christian  Church,  I.,  456. 
*  Fisher's  Hist.  0/ the  Christian  Church,  p.  35. 


38  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

after  the  pattern  of  the  synagogue  Bible-schools,  was  a 
recognized  agency  for  the  extension  of  the  Christian 
Church,  and  for  the  upbuilding  in  the  new  faith  of  those 
who  were  won  to  Christ  from  the  Jewish  fold  or  from  the 
Gentile  world. 

It  is  said  of  "Peter  and  the  apostles"1  in  Jerusa- 
lem, that,  "  every  day,  in  the  temple  and  at  home,  they 
ceased  not  to  teach  and  to  preach  Jesus  as  the  Christ"2 
These  apostles  were  Jews  before  they  were  Christians, 
and  it  was  as  Jews  that  they  had  learned  how  to  teach. 
That  they  realized  the  distinction  between  "teaching" 
and  "  preaching,"  is  evidenced  in  their  frequent  antitheti- 
cal use  of  the  one  term  over  against  the  other.  "  Paul 
and  Barnabas,"  again,  "  tarried  in  Antioch,  teaching  and 
preaching  the  word  of  the  Lord,  with  many  others  also."  3 
The  truth  taught  by  these  Christian  teachers  was  very 
different  from  that  which  had  been  there  taught  as  truth 
before ;  but  the  method  of  the  teaching  was  in  all  proba- 
bility the  same. 

Paul  had  been  a  scholar  in  the  Beth-ha-Midrash  of 
Gamaliel.4  He  was  skilled  in  the  teaching  processes  of 
the  best  Jewish  Bible-schools.  As  he  and  Silas  journeyed, 
"  they  came  to  Thessalonica,  where  was  a  synagogue  of 
the  Jews :  and  Paul,  as  his  custom  was,  went  in  unto 
them,  and  for  three  Sabbath  days  [or  for  three  weeks, 
including  the  Mondays  and  Thursdays  between  Sabbaths, 
he]  reasoned  with  them  from  the  Scriptures  [discussed 
with  them  out  of  the  Scriptures  in  Jewish  teaching  fash- 
ion], opening  and  alleging,  that  it  behooved  the  Christ  to 
suffer,  and  to  rise  again  from  the  dead."5     At  Berea, 

i  Acts  S  :  29.  5  Acts  5  :  42.  s  Acts  15  :  35. 

*  Acts  22 :  3.  5  Acts  17 :  1-3. 


ITS  CHRISTIAN  ADOPTION.  39 

again,  Paul  did  a  similar  work ;  and  the  record  stands  of 
his  Berean  hearers,  that  "  these  were  more  noble  than 
those  in  Thessalonica,  in  that  they  received  the  word 
with  all  readiness  of  mind,  examining  [for  themselves] 
the  Scriptures  daily,  whether  these  things  were  so.  Many 
of  them  therefore  [as  might  be  supposed]  believed," 
including  "  Greek  women  of  honorable  estate,  and  of 
men,  not  a  few." l  At  Athens,  Paul  "  reasoned  [or  dis- 
cussed, in  Bible-school  manner]  in  the  synagogue  with 
the  Jews  and  the  [other]  devout  persons;"  and  he  did 
the  same  thing  "  in  the  market-place  every  day  with  them 
that  met  with  him ;  "2  using  the  interlocutory  or  the  inter- 
colloquial  method  of  teaching  and  learning,  which  was 
the  essence  of  the  Jewish  educational  system. 

The  Beth-ha-Midrash  gatherings,  and  the  Beth-ha- 
Midrash  methods,  seem  to  have  been  the  fresh  starting- 
points  of  the  Christian  Church  in  all  the  earlier  apostolic 
work  under  the  requirements  and  the  authority  of  the 
Great  Commission.  At  Corinth,  Paul  seems  to  have  begun 
his  labors  by  having  a  share  in  the  Beth-ha-Midrash 
exercises  of  the  synagogue.  "And  he  reasoned  in  the 
synagogue  every  Sabbath,  and  persuaded  [or  sought  to 
persuade]  Jews  and  Greeks."  When,  however,  he  made 
bold  to  preach  the  gospel  there,  "  testifying  to  the  Jews 
that  Jesus  was  the  Christ,"  a  breach  was  made  between 
him  and  them,  and  he  went  out,  carrying  with  him  the 
ruler  of  the  synagogue,  and  started  a  new  Bible-school 
in  "  the  house  of  a  certain  man  named  Titus  Justus,  .  .  . 
whose  house  joined  hard  to  the  synagogue."  There  he 
continued  "  a  year  and  six  months,  teaching  the  word  of 
God  among  them." 3 

1  Acts  17:  ii,  12.  *Actsi7:i7.  8  Acts  18  :  1-11. 


40  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

At  Ephesus,  after  a  three  months'  trial  of  "  reasoning 
[with]  and  persuading  [or  of  trying  to  persuade  the  Jews 
in  the  synagogue  school]  as  to  the  things  concerning  the 
kingdom  of  God,"  Paul,  as  at  Corinth,  went  out  from  the 
synagogue  school,  taking  with  him  the  Christian  scholars; 
and  he  gathered  the  nucleus  of  a  Christian  Bible-school 
in  connection  with  a  daily  exercise  "  in  the  school  of  Ty- 
rannus,"  which  "continued  for  the  space  of  two  years."1 
Again,  for  two  whole  years  Paul  was  similarly  occupied 
"in  his  own  hired  dwelling"  in  Rome;  "preaching  the 
kingdom  of  God,  and  teaching  the  things  [the  'all  things' 
commanded  of  Christ]  concerning  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ"2 
That  was  the  way  in  which  our  Lord  had  enjoined  it  upon 
his  disciples  to  extend  and  to  upbuild  his  Church;  by 
making  scholars  of  those  who  would  be  learners,  and  by 
teaching  them  that  which  they  had  need  to  know ;  and 
that  was  the  way  in  which  the  disciples  carried  on  the 
work  which  had  been  committed  to  them  by  our  Lord. 

Incidental  references  to  "  instruction,"3  as  a  well-under- 

1  Acts  19 :  1-10.  2  Acts  28  :  30,  31. 

3  The  word  katecheo  (to  instruct  catechetically)  has  as  one  of  its  meanings — 
both  in  its  earlier  and  in  its  later  use — the  idea  of  a  sound  resounding,  or  of  a 
sound  given  back  again.  Our  word  "  echo  "  is  from  this  root.  So,  again,  is 
our  word  "catechising"  in  its  modern  signification  of  teaching  by  form  of 
question  and  answer.  (On  this  point  see  Thayer's  Greek-Eng.  Lex.  of  N.  T. ; 
Liddell  and  Scott's  Greek-Eng.  Lex.  ;  Schleusner's  Lex.  Grceco-Lat.  in  Nov. 
Test.,  s.  v.;  with  references  to  Homer,  Hesiod,  Lucian,  etc.).  Whether,  as 
has  been  often  claimed  by  critical  commentators  from  the  days  of  Melanch- 
thon  down,  this  word,  in  its  primitive  meaning,  properly  suggests  a  process  of 
teaching  which  secures  an  answer  back  from  a  sounding  question,  or  whether 
that  idea  is  an  outgrowth  of  its  later  uses,  it  certainly  would  seem  clear  that 
the  term  katecheo,  as  used  in  the  New  Testament,  refers  to  a  method  of  explicit 
and  systematic  teaching  with  which  the  Jewish  Christians  were  familiar  ;  while, 
as  has  been  shown,  the  only  method  of  such  teaching  which  we  know  of  as  in 
use  by  the  Jews  at  this  time  and  earlier,  was  by  means  of  question  and  answer. 


ITS  CHRISTIAN  ADOPTION.  41 

stood  process  of  technical  Christian  teaching,  are  made  by 
Luke  in  connection  with  the  warm-hearted  convert  The- 
ophilus,1  and  of  the  eloquentand  zealous  preacher  Apollos.2 
"Teachers"3  are  named  among  the  recognized  workers  of 
the  Christian  Church ;  and  their  office  work  of"  teaching  "4 
is  given  prominence  in  its  place.  It  is  even  named  as  an 
essential  qualification  of  a  bishop,  that  he  shall  be  "  apt 
to  teach."5  And  "children"6 — as  those  to  whom  our 
Lord  gave  prominence — are  specifically  included  in  the 
number  of  those  to  whom  the  apostolic  epistles  were  sent 
as  a  fresh  basis  and  outline  of  instruction.  Hence  there 
is  sound  reason  for  supposing  that  the  best  lessons  of  the 
Jewish  Church,  and  the  specific  injunctions  of  the  divine 
Founder  of  the  Christian  Church,  concerning  the  church 
care  of  children,  and  the  systematic  study  of  the  Scrip- 
tures through  the  process  of  interlocutory  instruction, 
were  borne  in  mind,  and  were  put  in  practice  by  the 
divinely  guided  leaders  of  the  Apostolic  Church. 

That  it  was  the  Bible  itself,  the  inspired  text  of  the 

In  other  words,  the  form  of  catechetical  instruction  in  use  by  the  Jews,  and 
again  by  the  first  Jewish  Christians,  is  fairly  to  be  recognized  as  the  interlocu- 
tory form,  whether  the  New  Testament  word  employed  for  its  designation 
would  in  itself  give  proof  of  this  fact,  or  not. 

1  Luke  1 :  4.  Dr.  Schaff  (Schaff-Lange's  Comm.,  in  loco)  says,  at  this  point : 
"Literally,  'catechised,'  '  catechetically  taught ' — katechethes.  The  specific 
word  should  have  been  retained  here  and  elsewhere,  instead  of  the  more 
indefinite  instruct  or  teach.  Catechising  is  a  primitive  and  most  important 
institution  of  the  Church,  and  a  preparatory  school  for  full  membership. 
Archbishop  Usher  says :  '  The  neglect  of  catechising  is  the  frustrating  of  the 
whole  work  of  the  ministry.'  "  (Comp.  also  Meyer's  Comm.  ;  Plumptrc,  in 
Ellicott's  N.  T.  Comm. ;  and  Farrar,  in  the  Cambridge  Bible  for  Schools, — 
all  in  loco.)  2  Acts  18  :  25. 

8  Acts  13 :  1 ;  1  Cor.  12 :  28,  29 ;  Eph.  4 :  11. 

*  Rom.  12:7;  Col.  1 :  28  ;  3  :  16.  6  1  Tim.  3  :  2. 

•  Eph.  6:1;  Col.  3 :  20 ;  2  John  1. 


42  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

sacred  writings,  that  was  to  be  the  subject-matter  of 
teaching  and  of  study  from  childhood  to  maturity  in  the 
church  Bible-school,  is  pointed  out  by  Paul,  in  his  counsel 
to  the  young  bishop  of  Ephesus  concerning  the  training 
work  to  which  he  was  set  of  God.  "  Every  scripture  in- 
spired of  God  is  also  profitable  for  teaching,  for  reproof,  for 
correction,  for  instruction  which  is  in  righteousness:  that 
the  man  of  God  may  be  complete,  furnished  completely 
unto  every  good  work."1  The  word  here  rendered  "in- 
struction "  is  not  katechesis,  as  in  some  of  the  cases  noted. 
"  It  is,  in  the  Greek,"  as  a  modern  church  historian  has 
pointed  out,2  " paideia,  from  pais,  a  child,  and  signifies 
an  education  begun  in  childhood;  or,  if  we  may  fall 
back  upon  the  case  of  Timothy,3  in  the  days  of  lisp- 
ing infancy.  Those  who  have  encountered  Xenophon's 
Cyropcedia,  or  the  education  of  Cyrus  from  his  boy- 
hood, will  recognize  and  catch  in  a  moment  the  word's 
signification.  Christianity,  in  its  comprehensive  plan  for 
a  human  existence,  is  a  Christo-pedia,  is  intended  [is 
divinely  intended]  to  begin  with  a  child's  first  dawnings 
of  reason  and  conscience ;  and  to  go  on  with  him,  step  by 
step,  till  he  learns,  and  by  Heaven's  grace  fulfills,  all  his 
Christian  responsibilities,  till  he  is  made,  not  worthy, 
indeed,  but,  to  use  scriptural  language,  meet  for  the  inher- 
itance of  the  saints  in  light.  And  the  church,  with  its 
chief  teacher  in  the  pulpit,  and  its  subordinate  teachers 
in  the  Bible-class  and  the  Sunday-school,  is  to  be  the 
grand  instrumentality  for  keeping  God's  truth  alive  and 

1  2  Tim.  3  :  16,  17. 
2  Dr.  T.  W.  Coit,  in  "  History  of  Catechising  "  in  The  Sunday  School  Times, 
April  19,  1879.     Corap.  "  The  Office  of  Catechising,"  ibid.,  July  5,  1879. 
3  2  Tim.  3  :  15. 


ITS  CHRISTIAN  ADOPTION.  43 

predominant  in  the  human  mind,  and  bringing  that  truth 
forth  to  victory  for  the  salvation  of  the  soul." 

And  now  let  us  look  back  and  see  what  we  have  ascer- 
tained in  the  course  of  our  investigations  so  far.  From 
the  days  of  Abraham,  systematic  "  instruction  "  had  its 
place  in  the  plans  of  the  chosen  people  of  God.  From 
the  days  of  Moses,  the  Jewish  Church  had  a  measure 
of  responsibility  for  the  religious  training  of  the  young. 
From  the  days  of  Ezra,  the  Bible-school  was  a  recognized 
agency,  among  the  Jewish  people,  for  the  study  and  teach- 
ing of  God's  Word.  In  the  days  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth, 
there  was,  in  the  land  of  his  birth  and  sojourn,  a  system 
of  Bible -schools,  corresponding  quite  closely  in  their 
general  features  with  our  modern  Sunday-schools.  The 
elementary  or  primary  schools  in  this  system  gave  chief 
prominence  to  the  study  of  the  Bible  text.  The  advanced 
or  senior  schools  in  this  system  were  a  department  of  the 
synagogue ;  and  in  them  Bible  commentaries,  in  addition 
to  the  Bible  text,  were  a  subject  of  familiar  study.  The 
elementary  schools  were  for  children  only.  The  senior 
schools  had  a  place  for  children  as  well  as  for  adults. 
In  all  the  schools  the  arrangement  was  that  of  scholars 
grouped  under  a  special  teacher;  and  the  process  of  teach- 
ing was  by  form  of  question  and  answer.  Our  Lord 
seems  to  have  been  a  scholar  in  schools  of  this  character; 
and  again  he  was  a  teacher  in  such  schools.  In  founding 
his  Church,  he  made  Bible-school  work  its  basis.  His 
disciples  recognized  the  scope  and  details  of  his  plan, 
and  they  prosecuted  their  labors  of  evangelizing  and  of 
edifying  accordingly.  The  Bible-school  was  the  starting- 
point  of  the  Christian  Church ;  and  it  was  by  means  of 


^V^JfK 


44  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 

Bible-school  methods  that  the  Christian  Church  was  first 
extended  and  upbuilded. 

And  thus  it  is  that  we  find  in  the  history  and  the  tra- 
ditions of  the  biblical  age,  the  Jewish  origin  and  the 
Christian  adoption  of  the  distinguishing  characteristics 
of  that  agency  of  religious  teaching  which  is  known  in 
our  day  as  the  Sunday-school. 


LECTURE   II. 


THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL:    SEVENTEEN  CENTURIES 
OF  ITS  VARYING  PROGRESS. 


II 

THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL:    SEVENTEEN  CENTURIES 
OF  ITS  VARYING  PROGRESS. 

Christian  Beginnings  in  Gentile  Communities. —  Questions  and  An- 
swers in  Catechumenical  Instruction. — Questions  and  Answers 
in  Pulpit  Preaching. — Methods  of  Teaching  in  Alexandria. — 
Evangelizing  by  Mission -schools. — Ritualism  Overshadows 
Bible  Study. — The  Dark  Ages  a  Consequence. — Gleams  of 
light  in  Darkness. —  Revival  of  Schools  in  the  Reformation.— 
Catechisms  Multiplied. —  Romish  Recognition  of  the  School 
Idea. — Catechisms  as  a  Barrier  to  Catechetical  Teaching. — A 
Lesson  from  New  England. —  Superiority  of  Teaching  over 
Preaching  in  the  Training  Process. — A  New  Decline  of  the 
Bible-school  Agency. 

So  long  as  the  Christian  Church  found  its  new  centres 
of  evangelizing  in  Jewish  communities,  the  character  of 
its  sanctuary  services  and  the  methods  of  its  training 
work  were,  as  a  matter  of  course,  largely  conformed  to 
the  plan  and  practices  of  the  Jewish  synagogue.1  Its 
Bible-schools  were  based  on  the  synagogue-school  foun- 

1  "  It  must  in  the  first  place  be  remembered  that  the  original  members  of 
the  Christian  brotherhood  were  Jews,  and  were  in  no  haste  to  abandon  the 
religious  customs  of  their  nation.  Christ  had  come  '  not  to  destroy  the  law 
but  to  fulfil,'  and  the  example  of  the  Master  strongly  inculcated  respect  for 
the  ancient  forms.  .  .  .  We  should  naturally,  therefore,  be  prepared  to  find 
in  Jewish  forms  the  starting-point  of  the  development  of  those  adopted  by  the 
Christians"  (G.  Baldwin  Brown's  From  Schola  to  Cathedral,  p.  5  f.). 

47 


48  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

dation,  as  seems  evident  from  the  indications  already 
pointed  out  in  the  Book  of  Acts  and  in  the  Epistles.1 
But  when  the  Church  gained  a  foot-hold  in  purely  Gentile 
communities,  and  extended  its  membership  among  those 
who  had  known  nothing  of  Jewish  training  methods,  it 
necessarily  varied  its  system  of  instruction,  adapting  the 
details  of  that  system  to  the  peculiar  needs  of  its  new  fields.2 
For  a  long  time  Christianity  had  no  one  land  and 
people  which  it  controlled  religiously,  as  the  Jewish 
Church  had  had;  hence  it  was  unable  to  enforce  a  uni- 
form church-school  system  in  all  communities  alike,  with 
carefully  graded  instruction  from  the  primary  class  to  the 
divinity  school.  The  best  that  it  could  yet  do  was  to 
provide,  in  every  local  church  gathering,  for  the  cate- 
chetical instruction  of  the  young,  including  the  children 
of  believers,  and  all  other  children  who  could  be  brought 
under  its  care;  and  then  to  establish,  at  certain  large 
centres,  schools  for  the  more  thorough  instruction  in  the 
"all  things"  which  the  fully  furnished  Christian  had  need 
to  know.  And  just  this  it  did  do,  as  ecclesiastical  his- 
tory makes  clear.  Meanwhile  individual  Christians  were 
forward  and  active  in  efforts  to  reach  and  to  teach  the 
young  whenever  and  wherever  they  might  do  so.  For 
this  reason  they  were  always  ready  to  be  teachers  in 
any  school  where  they  might,  by  the  teaching  process, 
impress  the  truth  of  God  on  impressible  minds  and  hearts. 
"The  Apostolic  Church,"  says  Baron  Bunsen,  "made 

1  See  pp.  37-41,  ante. 
s  Hatch,  in  The  Organization  of  the  Early  Christian  Churches  (Bampton 
Lectures  for  1880)  makes  clear  these  two  propositions  (p.  208) :  "  1.  That 
the  development  of  the  organization  of  the  Christian  churches  was  gradual. 
2.  That  the  elements  of  which  that  organization  were  composed  were  already 
existing  in  human  society." 


ITS  VARYING  PROGRESS.  49 

the  school  the  connecting  link  between  herself  and  the 
world."1  Tertullian's  counsels  concerning  the  relation  of 
Christian  teachers  to  heathen  literature,2  while  engaged 
in  the  work  of  popular  instruction,  are  illustrative  of 
this  truth. 

It  was  because  of  the  power  already  obviously  gained 
over  the  popular  mind  by  Christian  teachers,  through  this 
catechetical  teaching-process,  in  the  schools  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  that  Julian  the  Apostate,  in  the  fourth  century, 
"  determined  to  take  the  control  of  education  into  the 
hands  of  the  state;"  and  that  he  issued  his  formal  edict, 
designed  to  shut  out  all  Christian  teachers  from  those 
schools.  The  Emperor  realized  that  the  continuous  life 
of  Christianity  pivoted  on  the  school  idea, — on  the  inter- 
locutory teaching  of  the  young, — and  that,  if  he  could  put 
an  end  to  this  line  of  Christian  work,  he  could  hope  to 
check  the  permanent  progress  of  Christianity.  As  Bishop 
Lancelot  Andrewes,  two  centuries  ago,  said  of  this  plan  of 
Julian's :  "  If  he  had  not  been  as  a  cloud  that  soon  pass- 
eth  away,  it  might  have  been  feared  that  in  a  short  time 
he  had  overshadowed  true  religion." 3  Or  again,  as  more 
recently  Bishop  John  Wordsworth  has  said:  "If  Julian 
had  lived,  and  this  edict  could  really  have  been  put  into 
force  for  any  time,  it  must  have  been  a  very  dangerous 
instrument  for  the  injury  of  the  faith."4  In  other  words, 
God's  method  of  extending  and  upbuilding  his  Church 

1  Hippolytus  and  His  Age,  II.,  105. 
1  Tertullian's  "  On  Idolatry,'  ch.  x.,  in  The  Ante- Nicene  Fathers,  III.,  66  I. 
8  The  Pattern  of  Catechistical  Doctrine,  p.  7. 
*  Art.  *'  Julianus-Emperor,"  in  Smith's  Diet,  of  Christian  Biog.     Cotnp. 
SchafTs  Hist,  of  the  Christian  Church,  III.,  53  f.,  and  Fisher's  Hist,  of  the 
Christian  Church,  p.  91. 

4 


50  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

was  the  one  effective  method,  his  enemies  themselves 
being  judges. 

Our  Lord  had  taught  that  children  and  the  child-like 
were  to  be  the  foremost  object  of  his  people's  care,  and 
that  interlocutory  teaching  was  the  method  by  which  his 
cause  should  be  promoted  and  extended  in  the  world. 
His  followers  recognized  the  importance  of  this  twofold 
truth ;  and  from  the  beginning  they  gave  a  chief  place, 
in  the  work  of  evangelizing,  to  efforts  among  children  and 
the  child-like;  and  interlocutory  teaching  was  the  method 
by  which  they  made  the  truths  of  the  gospel  effective 
upon  the  minds  of  those  reached  by  them.  Within  a 
century  after  the  apostolic  age,  Celsus,  a  prominent  and 
powerful  opponent  of  Christianity,  charged  Christians  with 
extending  their  numbers  and  propagating  their  views  by 
getting  hold  of  children  privately  in  homes  and  schools, 
and  influencing  them  by  conversations  with  them,  without 
the  knowledge  of  their  parents  or  teachers,  and  thus  leading 
them  away  from  the  religion  of  their  parents.  In  replying 
to  this  charge  of  Celsus,  Origen  did  not  deny  the  main 
facts  of  the  case  as  stated  by  Celsus;  but  he  insisted  that 
the  children  thus  reached  by  Christians  out  of  Pagan 
homes  were  benefited  by  the  lessons  imparted  to  them, 
and  that  if  their  parents  were  wise  and  well  disposed  they 
would  recognize  this  as  the  truth.1 

Not  by  great  sermonizers  swaying  the  minds  of  adult 
unbelievers,  but  by  individual  teachers  reaching  and  teach- 
ing children  and  the  child -like  individually,  were  the 
triumphs  of  early  Christianity  mainly  won.  "  It  is  a  re- 
markable fact,"  says  Schaff,  "that  after  the  days  of  the 

1  Origen's  "Against Celsus,"  Bk.  iii.,  chs.  55-58  ;  in  The Ante- Nicene  Fathers, 
IV.,  486  f. 


ITS  VARYING  PROGRESS.  5 1 

Apostles  no  names  of  great  missionaries  are  mentioned 
till  the  opening  of  the  Middle  Ages.  .  .  .  There  were  no 
missionary  societies,  no  missionary  institutions,  no  organ- 
ized efforts  in  the  Ante-Nicene  age ;  and  yet  in  less  than 
three  hundred  years  from  the  death  of  St  John  the  whole 
population  of  the  Roman  empire,  which  then  represented 
the  civilized  world,  was  nominally  Christianized." l  And 
this  was  because  the  divinely  approved  plan  of  the  child- 
reaching  and  the  child -teaching  methods  of  Christian 
activity  were  adhered  to  by  the  immediate  successors  of 
the  apostles  of  our  Lord. 

The  catechetical  instruction  of  the  Early  Church,  which 
finds  mention  in  the  New  Testament  record,2  grew  in 
prominence  and  in  obvious  importance  until  the  very 
church  edifices  were  constructed  with  a  view  to  the 
accommodation  of  its  subjects.3  Meanwhile  the  fore- 
most minds  in  the  Church  at  large  were  gladly  devoted 
to  the  work  of  catechising ;  great  preachers  as  well  as  great 
teachers  being  willing  to  leave  all  other  work,  if  necessary, 
in  order  to  exercise  the  function  of  the  catechist.4 

I  SchafTs  Hist,  of  the  Christian  Church,  II.,  19  f. 
*  Luke  1:4;  Acts  18 :  25.  See  notes,  pp.  40,  41,  ante. 
*  See  art.  "  Catechumen,"  in  Encyc.  Brit.  ;  also  Bingham's  Antiquities  of 
the  Christian  Church,  Bk.  viii.,  chs.  3-7.  "  For  the  Church,"  says  Bingham, 
'*  ever  since  she  first  divided  her  catechumens  and  penitents  into  distinct  orders 
and  classes,  had  also  distinct  places  in  the  church  for  them."  "  The  .  .  . 
probable  numbers  of  the  members  of  a  congregation  likely  to  be  in  the  con- 
dition of  catechumens,"  says  the  Encyclopedia  Britannica,  "  may  serve  to 
explain  in  some  degree  the  architectural  arrangements  still  to  be  seen  in  some 
churches  of  the  early  centuries  [as,  for  example]  .  .  .  the  church  of  St.  Am- 
brose at  Milan,  and  that  of  St.  Clement  at  Rome,  and  some  others."  Thus 
it  would  seem  that  the  providing  accommodations  for  the  Sunday-school 
membership  in  the  church-building  has  the  sanction  of  high  antiquity. 

4  Sec  De  Pressens^'s  Christian  Life  and  Practice  in  the  Early  Church, 


52  THE  SUNDAY- SCHOOL : 

It  is  true — and  it  is  strange  that  it  is  true — that  there 
has  been  some  question  whether  the  catechetical  in- 
struction of  the  Early  Church  included,  as  an  essential 
feature,  the  interlocutory  method  of  teaching.  And  as 
an  often  used  argument  against  the  probability  of  the 
prevalence  of  this  method,  the  unbroken  form  of  the  few 
catechumenical  discourses  preserved  to  us  is  pointed  out.1 
But,  apart  from  the  fact  that  effective  elementary  teaching 
by  continuous  discourse  to  passive  hearers  is,  and  always 
has  been,  and  ever  must  be,  practically  impossible,  there 
is  evidence  from  various  sources  that  the  early  Christian 
Fathers  no  more  attempted  this  false  method  than  did 
the  Jewish  Rabbis  before  them.  Nor,  indeed,  does  the 
form  of  the  early  catechetical  discourses,  any  more  than 
a  similar  form  in  our  modern  school  text-books,  preclude 
the  idea  that  free  questioning  on  the  substance  of  the 
text  was  deemed  indispensable  as  a  means  of  testing  and 
fixing  the  learner's  knowledge  of  its  meaning.  The 
absence  of  set  questions  and  answers  in  the  text  of  the 
catechetical  discourses  simply  shows  that  the  interlocu- 
tory teaching  of  the  early  catechumens  was  by  means  of 
no  mere  perfunctory  questioning  with  memorized  rote 
answers  in  reply. 

The  fact  that  the  religious  teaching  of  the  Jews,  through 
whom  the  Christians  received  their  religion,  was  mainly 
by  the  approved  means  of  question  and  answer,  renders 
it  most  improbable  that  a  less  effective  method  of  teach- 
ing was  adopted  by  the  best  Christian  instructors  without 

Bk.  I.,  ch.  I,  §  i ;  also  Proudfit's  "  Catechetical  Instruction  before  the  Refor- 
mation," in  Home,  the  School,  and  the  Church,  IV.,  47. 

1  See,  e.g.,  Von  Zezschwitz's  art.  "  Katechetik,"  in  Herzog's  Real-Encyc; 
also  Mayer's  Gesch.  d.  Katechumetiats  u.  d.  Katechese,  pp.  6,  255,  269,  300. 


ITS  VARYING  PROGRESS.  53 

any  good  reason  for  the  change.  It  is  even  pretty  clear 
that  the  preaching,  or  sermonizing,  or  homilizing,  of  the 
first  two  or  three  Christian  centuries,  was  largely  in  the 
nature  of  interlocutory  conferences  between  the  preacher 
and  his  congregation.1  Paniel,  in  his  elaborate  "  Pragmatic 
History  of  Christian  Oratory  and  Preaching,"  throws 
light  on  this  point.  Calling  attention  to  the  fact  that  in 
the  earlier  centuries  "the  public  edifying  discoursing  in  an 
intelligible  tongue  was  still  quite  generally  called  didas- 
kalia"2  he  says:  " The  didaskalia  was  from  the  beginning 
nothing  else  than  a  mode  of  instruction  which  arose  from 
the  familiar  colloquy  of  the  members  of  the  congregation; 
taking  its  material  from  the  Gospel  narratives,  from  the 
Messianic  prophecies  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  from  the 
stories  of  the  life  and  death  of  the  apostles,  of  their  dis- 
ciples, and  of  the  martyrs."3  Its  immediate  method  was 
the  formal  dialogue.  Its  material  was  suited  to  the  occa- 
sion and  the  hearers.4    "As  religious  questions  were  put 

1  See  Broadus's  Lectures  on  the  History  of  Preaching,  p.  46.  The  very 
term  "  homily,"  applied  to  the  early  Christian  discourses,  would  seem  to  indi- 
cate an  interlocutory  conference  between  the  preacher  and  his  people.  Ho- 
tnilia  means  "  companionship,"  "  intercourse,"  "  communion."  See  Thayer's 
Greek- Eng.  Lex.  of  N.  T,  s.  v. 

*  Pragmat.  Gesch.  d.  Christ  I.  Beredsamkeit  u.  d.  Homiletik,  p.  79.  "  The 
right  to  teach,  however,  was  not  confined  to  the  presbyters  or  official  per- 
sons, but  depended  generally  on  charisma  lis  didaskalias  [the  grace,  or 
gift,  of  teaching];  and  in  virtue  of  this  charisma  [gift]  the  work  of  teaching 
belonged  also  to  ordinary  members  of  the  church,  1  Cor.  14 :  26.  This,  how- 
ever, did  not  preclude  the  possibility  of  an  official  obligation  to  teach  (not  a 
monopoly)  being  laid  upon  individual  members  of  the  church  who  were  quali- 
fied to  teach ;  and  so  those  called  to  this  duty  became  the  didaskaloi  of  tho 
Church  "  (Beck's  Pastoral  Theology  of  the  New  Testament,  p.  25  f.). 

*  Pragmat.  Gesch.  d.  Christl.  Beredsamkeit  u.  d.  Homiletik,  p.  135. 

*  The  inspired  description  of  the  gathering  on  the  day  of  Pentecost,  when 
the  Christian  Church,  as  such,  had  its  forming  (Acts  2:  1-40)  illustrates  this 


54  THE  SUNDA  Y- SCHOOL  : 

to  him,  or  as  the  edifying  conversation  of  members  of  the 
congregation  turned  the  thought  to  a  particular  theme,  the 
preacher  entered  into  explanations  and  contemplatings, 
dwelling  more  fully  on  one  point,  and  more  briefly  on 
another.  A  methodic  development  of  his  own  course  of 
thought  could  be  brought  out  only  so  far  as  the  charac- 
teristics of  his  hearers,  and  as  the  questions  or  objections 
raised  by  them,  made  this  possible.  The  preacher  himself 
was  only  one  of  the  speakers;  even  though  he  was  the 
principal  one.  The  others  were  the  co-speakers,  who 
prompted  the  chief  speaker  to  his  speaking,  and  who 
retained  the  right  to  interrupt  him  at  any  time.  Even 
when  the  ministry  was  transferred  to  a  designated  class 
of  persons,  this  right  of  joining  in  conversation  with  the 
preacher  [as  he  discoursed]  was  not  wholly  surrendered 
by  the  congregation." x 

In  illustration  of  this  latter  claim,  Paniel  points  out2  that 
"  Macarius's  homilies  show  most  clearly  the  intercourse 
which  existed  between  the  preacher  and  his  hearers  in 
the  early  Christian  times.     In  this  regard  they  are  real 

method.  Peter  was  the  chief  speaker  among  the  disciples,  but  by  no  means 
the  only  one.  From  the  time  that  they  "all  .  .  .  began  to  speak  with  other 
tongues,"  until  the  repentant  Jews  interrupted  Peter  with  their  question  to 
him  and  to  "  the  rest  of  the  apostles,  '  Brethren,  what  shall  we  do? '  "  the 
occasion  would  seem  to  have  been  a  conference,  rather  than  a  congregation 
of  passive  hearers  sitting  before  a  sermonizer.  Yet  here  is  where  we  find  the 
record  of  what  is  known  as  "  Peter's  Sermon."  Justin  Martyr's  familiar  descrip- 
tion ("  Apology,"  i.,  67,  in  The  Ante-Nicene  Fathers,  I.,  185  f.)  of  the  ordinary 
Sunday  services  of  the  Christians  in  his  day  [the  middle  of  the  second  cen- 
tury] is  quite  consistent  with  this  view  of  the  case.  After  the  reading  of  the 
Scriptures  by  some  of  their  number,  the  chief  one  among  them,  he  says, 
"verbally  instructs  and  exhorts  "  in  the  line  of  the  Bible  lessons;  thus  con- 
forming to  the  New  Testament  plan  of  "  teaching  and  preaching." 

1  Pragmat.  Gesch.  d.  Christ/.  Beredsamkeit  u.  d.  Homiletik,  p.  135. 
8  Ibid.,  p.  400. 


ITS  VARYING  PROGRESS.  55 

'homilies;'  yea,  they,  together  with  some  similar  ser- 
mons by  Ephraem  Syrus,  by  Isaias  Abbas,  and  by  Marcus 
Asketes,  are  the  only  existing  '  homilies '  of  the  oldest 
forms." '  If,  indeed,  the  Christian  Fathers  felt  the  need 
of  this  interlocutory  method  of  instruction  in  the  pulpit,2 
and  yet  ignored  it  in  the  teacher's  chair,  they  must  have 
been  as  contrary-minded  in  their  processes  of  instruction 
as  Herodotus  says  the  Egyptians  were  in  their  religious 
and  social  customs.3  But  the  free  use  of  the  question 
and  answer  form  of  statement  in  the  commentaries  and 
other  religious  writings  of  the  Christian  Fathers,  even 
where  those  writings  were  not  designed  for  elementary 


1  This  statement  of  Paniel  needs  modifying,  in  view  of  the  light  recently 
thrown  on  the  so-called  "  Second  Epistle  of  Clement,"  which  is  shown  to  be 
an  ancient  homily  by  an  unknown  author — the  oldest  homily  preserved  to  us. 
This  homily,  it  is  true,  lacks  the  interlocutory  form  ;  but  there  is  a  reason  for 
this  in  the  fact  that,  probably,  as  Lightfoot  claims  (S.  Clement  of  Rome,  Ap- 
pendix, p.  306,)  "  it  was  not  an  extempore  address,  but  was  delivered  from  a 
manuscript,"  and  was  afterward  made  use  of  by  being  "  read  publicly  to  the 
Christian  congregation  at  Corinth  from  time  to  time."  In  short,  it  is  a  record 
of  the  main  points  made  by  a  teaching-preacher  in  one  of  his  discourses,  rather 
than  an  exhibit  of  his  method  of  teaching. 

1  While  these  Lectures  are  passing  through  the  press,  I  have  a  private  letter 
from  Professor  Dr.  M.  B.  Riddle,  who  is  editing  an  edition  of  Chrysostom's 
works  for  the  Post-Nicene  Fathers  ;  and  in  this  letter  he  says:  "In  editing 
Chrysostom  I  have  been  struck  by  the  frequency  with  which  he  introduces 
objections  or  queries  (phisin  ['He  says']  is  his  word).  While  his  homilies 
are  continuous,  there  is  a  constant  ideal  interlocutory  process.  See  passim 
his  Homilies."  The  descriptions  preserved  to  us  of  the  freedom  in  conversa- 
tion, and  in  the  showing  of  approval  or  disapproval  of  the  preacher,  on  the 
part  of  Constantinople  audiences,  in  the  days  of  Chrysostom,  would  indicate 
pretty  clearly  that  the  preacher  was  yet  only  the  chief  speaker — and  not  always 
that — at  the  regular  services  of  the  church.  Sec,  on  this  point,  a  scholarly 
article  on  "Constantinople  in  the  Fourth  Century,"  from  the  Quarterly  Re- 
view, reprinted  in  Littell's  Living  Age  for  November  a8,  1846,  p.  431  f. 

»  Hist.,  ii.,  35. 


56  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

religious  instruction,1  shows  how  familiar  this  method  was 
to  them  as  an  element  in  the  ordinary  teaching  process. 

The  imperfect  records  which  are  left  to  us  of  the  great 
catechetical  school  at  Alexandria  would,  however,  seem 
sufficient  to  prove  that  the  teaching  methods  which  had 
before  been  found  effective  in  the  schools  both  of  Jewish 
religion  and  of  Grecian  philosophy,  were  made  use  of 
at  their  best  in  that  school  of  the  Christian  faith — and 
presumably  in  similar  schools  elsewhere.  To  begin 
with,  the  influence  of  the  thought  and  teachings  of  Philo 
Judaeus — mediator  as  he  was  between  Moses  and  Plato — 
on  the  founders  of  the  great  Christian  school  at  Alex- 
andria, is  admitted  on  all  sides.2  The  commentaries  of 
Philo  on  the  Pentateuch,  as  preserved  in  their  Armenian 
fragments,  are  arranged  in  the  form  of  question  and 
answer  much  on  the  principle  of  the  modern  larger  cate- 
chisms of  the  different  branches  of  Protestant  Christianity; 
except  that  in  Philo's  work  it  is  the  pupil  who  asks  the 
question,  and  it  is  the  teacher  who  answers  it.3  These 
interrogative  commentaries  of  Philo  are  shown  to  have 
been  made  a  basis  of  the  early  Pentateuchal  teaching  of 
the  catechumens  at  Alexandria  and  beyond,  as  late  as  the 

1  See  citations  from  Basil  and  Athanasius  in  Proudfit's  article,  as  above ;  also, 
articles  "Apollinaris  "  and  "  Theodoretus  "  in  Smith's  Diet,  of  Christian  Biog. 
Basil's  Greater  and  Lesser  Monastic  Rules,  as  well  as  his  second  book  on 
Baptism,  are  in  the  form  of  question  and  answer.  Apollinaris  the  Elder,  aided 
by  his  son  of  the  same  name,  adapted  the  Gospels  and  the  Epistles  of  the  New 
Testament  "  to  the  form  of  Socratic  disputation."  Theodoret's  commentaries 
"  upon  the  historical  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  from  Genesis  to  2  Chronicles, 
are  in  the  form  of  question  and  answer  upon  the  more  difficult  passages." 
"  Fourteen  books  of  questions  and  answers  [on  the  Bible  text]  form  the  first 
volume  of  Schulze's  edition  of  Theodoret." 

3  See  Bigg's  The  Christian  Platonists  of  Alexandria,  passim. 
8  Opera,  VI.,  VII.     Comp.  Vitringa,  as  cited  at  p.  20,  ante. 


ITS  VARYING  PROGRESS.  $? 

days  of  Ambrose  and  Augustine;1  and  it  is  certainly  fair 
to  presume  that  their  substance  and  method  were  also 
found  available  all  the  way  between  these  times. 

Clement,  who  was  at  the  head  of  the  Alexandrian 
school  before  the  close  of  the  second  century,  tells  in 
his  Stromata  ("Miscellanies")  of  his  indebtedness  as 
a  teacher  to  the  methods  of  his  former  instructors, — 
presumably  Tatian,  Theodotus,  and  Pantaenus.2  And 
these  methods,  as  indicated  by  Clement,  recognize  the 
fundamental  idea  of  the  learner's  need  of  mental  effort 
as  a  means  of  receiving  and  retaining  truth.  Thus,  for 
example :  "  By  teaching  one  learns;"3  "  Use  keeps  steel 
brighter,  but  disuse  produces  rust  on  it;"  "Wells,  when 
pumped  out,  yield  purer  water,  and  that  of  which  no  one 
partakes  turns  to  putrefaction."  "In  a  word,  exercise 
produces  a  healthy  condition  both  in  souls  and  bodies."4 
It  is  certainly  fair  to  assume  that  the  methods  of  teaching 
which  Clement  recognized  as  the  best,  were  not  neglected 
by  him  in  his  work  as  a  teacher. 

Origen,  yet  more  distinctively  than  Clement,  was  a 
representative  teacher  of  the  catechumens ;  as  he  was  the 
representative  scholar  of  his  age.  Origen  is,  indeed, 
characterized  by  Dr.  Bigg,  in  his  recent  study  of  "  the 
Christian  Platonists  of  Alexandria,"  as  "  the  first  great 
preacher,  the  first  great  commentator,  the  first  great  dog- 
matist" of  the  post -Apostolic  Church.5     The  teaching 

1  See,  e.g.,  Harris's  Fragments  of  Philo  Judeeus,  p.  3;  also  Harris's   The 
Teaching  of  the  Apostles,  p.  63. 

*  See  Clement's  Works  in  The  Ante-Nicene  Fathers,  II.,  301  f. 
•  This  is  a  repetition  of  Cicero's  aphorism,  Docendo  discimus, — "  By  teaching 
we  learn."     Impression  is  made  in  expression. 

4  The  Ante-Nicene  Fathers,  II.,  302  a. 
6  The  Christian  Plat,  of  Alex.,  p.  u$. 


58  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

methods  of  Origen  are,  therefore,  to  be  recognized  as  the 
best  known  methods  of  his  day ;  and  they,  fortunately, 
are  not  obscure.  Gregory  Thaumaturgus,  who  was  a 
pupil  of  Origen,  sounded  the  praises  of  his  teacher  as  a 
master  in  the  Socratic  method  of  instruction ;  "  and  for 
the  way  in  which  this  teacher  probed  his  [the  pupil's] 
inmost  soul  with  questions."1  Neander,  in  treating  the 
history  and  methods  of  the  school  at  Alexandria,  says : 
"  The  patience  and  skill  which  must  be  exercised  by  these 
Alexandrian  teachers,  in  answering  the  multifarious  ques- 
tions which  would  be  proposed  to  them,  is  intimated  by 
Origen  [in  his  notes  on  our  Lord's  manner  of  meeting 
captious  questioners  2]  when  he  requires  of  the  Christian 
teachers  [or  catechists]  that  they  should  follow  Christ's 
example,  and  not  show  a  fretful  spirit,  if  they  should  be 
pushed  with  questions  propounded  not  for  the  sake  of 
learning,  [from  the  teachers,]  but  for  the  purpose  of  put- 
ting them  to  the  proof."3 

Johann  Mayer,  the  eminent  Roman  Catholic  historian 
of  catechetics,  who  argues  against  the  idea  that  the  inter- 
locutory method  was  the  prevailing  one  in  the  Early 
Church,4 — even  he  recognizes  the  fact  that  in  the  treat- 
ment of  unevangelized  pupils  the  teaching  process  involved 
the  freest  use  of  question  and  answer.  He  shows  by  the 
testimony  of  Eusebius,5  and  by  the  statements  of  Origen 
in  his  controversy  with  Celsus,6  that  no  attempt  was  made 
to  win  and  train  young  heathen  without  full  and  thorough 

1  Art.  "Gregorius  Thaumaturgus,"  in  Smith's  Diet,  of  Christian  Biog. 

2  Matt.,  Tom.  XIV.,  g  16. 

8  Gen.  Hist,  of  the  Christian  Religion  and  Church,  I.,  528. 

4  Gesch.  d.  Katechumenats  u.  d.  Katechese,  pp.  6,  255,  269,  300. 

6  Hist.  Eccl.,  v.,  io.  6  Contra  Celsum,  iii.,  52;  vi.,  10. 


ITS  VARYING  PROGRESS.  59 

interlocutory  instruction.  In  this  line  he  says  that  the 
catechist  "  paid  due  regard  to  the  individuality,  to  the 
age,  to  the  sex,  and  to  the  rank  of  each  person  [thus  dealt 
with],  with  the  most  generous  considerateness," — on  the 
teacher's  part.  And  thus  it  was,  as  he  thinks,  that "  Origen 
devoted  himself  to  the  instruction  of  one  person  at  a  time, 
or  of  a  few  persons  who  were  alike  in  spirit  and  in  acquire- 
ments, or  who  were  united  in  bonds  of  friendship." l  But 
the  proving  of  this  proves  more  than  this.  If,  indeed,  the 
interlocutory  teaching  process  was  employed  in  the  win- 
ning and  training  of  the  heathen  because  it  was  found  to 
be  the  best  method,  it  is  hardly  to  be  supposed  that  a 
poorer  method  was  employed  in  the  instruction  of  young 
Christians. 

Origen,  indeed,  places  the  interlocutory  method  above 
the  hortatory  or  didactic  method,  as  a  means  of  edifying 
the  hearer.  "  We  put  the  gospel  before  each  one,  as  his 
character  and  disposition  may  fit  him  to  receive  it,"  he 
says;  " inasmuch  as  we  have  learned  to  know  'how  we 
ought  to  answer  every  man'  [each  one,  individually].2 
And  there  are  some  who  are  capable  of  receiving  nothing 
more  than  an  exhortation  to  believe,  and  to  those  we  ad- 
dress that  [exhortation]  alone;  while  we  approach  others, 
again,  as  far  as  possible,  in  the  way  of  demonstration,  by 
means  of  question  and  answer."3  That  is  to  say,  in  hope- 
ful cases  teaching  was  the  method ;  in  other  cases,  ex- 
horting was  all  that  could  be  attempted. 

Augustine,  again,  would  seem  to  put  this  matter  of 
methods  with  catechumens  beyond  all  reasonable  doubt. 
In  his  book,  "  Catechising  of  the  Uninstructed,"  prepared 
as  a  guide  to  a  catechist  at  Carthage,  he  details  the  several 

1  Gesch., p.  255.  *  Col.  4:6.  »  "Against  Celsus,"  vi.,  10. 


6o  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

steps  in  the  process  of  wise  catechising.  He  insists  that 
each  pupil  should  be  treated  according  to  his  individual 
needs ;  and  that  to  this  end  the  catechist  should  examine 
him  by  preliminary  questioning  as  to  his  motives  and  as 
to  his  attainments,  with  a  view  to  making  the  pupil's 
present  error  or  lack  the  starting-point  of  his  particular 
instruction.1  Similarly,  all  the  way  along  in  his  teaching, 
the  pupil,  according  to  Augustine,  must  be  watched  and 
questioned,  and  carefully  dealt  with  individually ;  so  that 
he  may  be  caused  to  know  rather  than  merely  be  caused 
to  hear  the  truth  which  is,  for  the  time  being,  the  sub- 
stance of  the  catechetical  instruction.  Every  effort  to 
secure  both  free  questioning  and  frank  answering  by  the 
pupil  himself,  is  to  be  made  by  the  catechist,  step  by  step, 
in  his  course  of  catechetical  teaching.2  It  is  the  individual 
pupil  who  is  to  be  taught ;  not  the  assembly  which  is  to 
be  harangued,  in  the  instruction  of  catechumens.3  That 
is  the  point  which  Augustine  emphasizes. 

In  a  specimen  discourse  to  catechumens  on  the  Creed,4 
Augustine  seems  to  illustrate  his  method  of  questioning 
by  his  frequent  introduction  of  questions,  to  which  he 
appends  his  own  answers ;  as  if  this  were  in  the  line  of 
his  habit  of  teaching.  Thus:  "What  next?  .  .  .  'was 
crucified,  dead,  and  buried.'  Who?  What?  For  whom? 
— Who?  God's  only  Son,  our  Lord.  What?  Crucified, 
dead,  and  buried.  For  whom?  For  [the]  ungodly  and 
sinners."  And  so  on  in  this  discourse,  which  was  to  be 
the  basis  of  instruction  in  the  meaning  of  the  articles  of 
the  Creed.     By  all  these  glimpses  of  the  current  of  events 

1  "  Catechising  of  the  Uninstructed,"  ch.  5;  in  Nicene  and  Post-Nicene 
Fathers,  III.,  288  b.  »  Ibid.,  chs.  8,  13.  "  Ibid.,  ch.  16. 

4  "  On  the  Creed,"  §7,  in  Nicene  and  Post-Nicene  Fathers,  III.,  371. 


ITS  VARYING  PROGRESS.  61 

in  the  Early  Church,  it  would  seem  clear  that  the  process 
of  religious  teaching  was  much  the  same  under  both 
Jewish  and  Christian  instructors,  in  whatever  form  the 
text  of  the  teaching  matter  was  presented. 

In  short,  as  Kraussold,  a  recent  and  very  high  German 
authority  concerning  the  history  of  catechetics,  sums  up 
the  case  in  the  matter  of  the  early  Christian  catechumen- 
ical  schools:  "The  method  of  instruction  was  at  first 
declaratory.  That,  at  the  same  time,  the  interrogatory 
method  was  employed,  is  self-evident."1  In  other  words, 
even  if  the  teacher  declared  in  advance  what  he  intended 
to  teach,  when  he  came  to  attempt  the  teaching  of  that 
which  he  had  declared,  he  used  the  ordinary  and  proper 
teaching  method,  which  includes  question  and  answer. 
That  is  "  self-evident." 

This  much  we  know  of  the  early  Christian  catechumen- 
ical  and  other  catechetical  schools,  as  illustrated  by  the 
great  one  in  Alexandria,  and  by  less  prominent  ones 
elsewhere ;  they  included  in  their  membership  children 
and  adults  of  both  sexes;2  among  their  teachers  were 
laymen  and  women;3  the  scholars  were  taught  individu-  I 
ally;4  the  interlocutory  method  of  teaching  was  used 
freely;5  and  the  subject-matter  of  instruction  began  with 
the  Old  Testament  story  of  creation,  and  went  on  to  the 
most  practical  details  of  the  Christian  life.6    And  this  is 

1  Die  Katechetik  fur  Schule  u.  Kirche,  p.  18. 
*  See  Bingham's  Antiquities,  Bk.  ii.,  ch.  22,  g  9 ;  Bk.  x.,  ch.  x,  \  4. 
»  Ibid.,  Bk.  ii.,  ch.  22,  g  9  ;  Bk.  hi.,  ch.  xo,  gg  2,  3 ;  Bk.  viii.,  ch.  7,  g  12; 
Bk.  xiv.,  ch.  4,  §  5.  *  Ibid.,  Bk.  x.,  ch.  1,  gg  3,  6;  ch.  2,  \  5. 

»  Ibid.,  Bk.  x.,  ch.  2,  g  7;  Bk.  xiv.,  ch.  4,  \  26. 
•  Ibid.,  Bk.  x.,  ch.  1,  gg  6,  7.     Comp.  De  Pressense's  Christian  Life  and 
Practice  in  the  Early  Church,  Bk.  i.,ch.  7.     See,  also,  articles  on  "Catechet- 
ics" and  "  Catechumens,"  in  Herzog's  Real-Encyc;  Smith  and  Cheetham's 


62  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

in  itself  a  description,  or  a  delineation,  of  the  Sunday- 
school  of  to-day,  in  its  main  and  essential  features.1 

As  the  Christian  Church  gained  in  the  scope  of  its 
power  as  an  organization,  and  came  to  have  control  of 
extended  communities,  provinces,  or  nationalities,  and  as 
it  reached  out  for  the  evangelizing  of  new  countries,  its 
formal  recognition  of  the  value  of  the  church  Bible-school 
corresponded  yet  more  nearly  with  the  ancient  Jewish 
polity  in  the  land  of  Palestine.  When,  for  example,  at 
the  very  beginning  of  the  fourth  century,  St.  Gregory, 
the  Illuminator,  entered  upon  his  work  of  christianizing 
Armenia,  he  adopted  a  compulsory  system  of  Bible- 
schools  for  the  children  in  every  city  there ;  and  by  this 
means  it  was  that  Armenia  was  built  up  in  the  Christian 
faith.2  And  it  would  seem  that  at  that  period,  as  also 
earlier,  there  were  public  schools  for  the  training  of  both 
heathen  and  Christian  children  in  the  knowledge  of  the 
Scriptures,  in  Mesopotamia,  Cappadocia,  Egypt,  and  else- 
where.3    Bingham,  indeed,  calls  attention  to  a  specific 

Diet,  of  Christian  Antiq.;  Encyc.  Brit.;  and  McClintock  and  Strong's 
Cyc.  of  Bib.,  Theol.,  and  Eccl.  Lit.;  and  article  on  "  Catechetical  Instruction 
before  the  Reformation,"  in  Home,  the  School  and  the  Church,  IV.,  46  f. 

1  "  In  the  Primitive  Church,  not  only  men  and  women,  but  children,  were 
encouraged  and  trained  up  from  their  infancy  to  the  reading  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures ;  and  the  catechumens  were  .  .  .  obliged  to  learn  the  Scriptures 
as  a  part  of  their  discipline  and  instruction,  .  .  .  [moreover]  children  were 
trained  up  to  the  use  of  the  Holy  Scriptures.  And  of  this  we  have  undoubted 
evidence  from  many  eminent  instances  of  their  practice  \e.  g.,  Eusebius, 
Socrates,  Sozomen,  and  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  are  here  quoted  in  illustration  of 
this  custom].  .  .  .  And  it  is  observable,  that  as  there  were  many  catechetical 
schools  in  those  times  for  explaining  the  Scriptures  to  the  catechumens,  so 
there  were  also  schools  appointed  in  many  churches  to  instruct  the  youth  in 
the  knowledge  of  the  Scriptures  "  (Bingham's  Antiq.,  Bk.  xiii.,  ch.  4,  \  9). 
.  *  Ibid.,  Bk.  xiii.,  ch.  4,  §  9. 
*  Ibid. ;  also  Bk.  viii.,  ch.  7,  g  12. 


ITS  VARYING  PROGRESS.  63 

"  canon  attributed  to  the  sixth  General  Council  of  Con- 
stantinople [A.  D.  680],  which  promotes  the  setting  up 
of  charity  schools  [Robert  Raikes'  Sunday-schools]  in 
all  country  churches;"1  as  practically  they  were  already 
to  be  found  in  the  cathedral  churches  generally.2 

In  all  these  Christian  church-schools,  as  in  the  earlier 
Jewish  church-schools,  it  was  the  Bible  text  itself  which 
was  the  primary  subject  of  study  and  of  teaching.  Very 
young  children  were  taught  to  memorize  the  Scriptures, 
and  at  the  same  time  to  understand  them.3  Illustrations 
abound  in  ecclesiastical  works  of  the  fourth  and  fifth  cen- 
turies, of  persons  who  had  become  so  familiar  with  the 
Scriptures  as  to  be  able  to  recite  large  portions  of  them 
— in  some  cases  the  entire  Old  and  New  Testaments — 
without  the  aid  of  a  book.4  Yet  this  memorizing  of  the 
Bible  text  was  but  incidental  to  the  Bible-school  teaching; 
it  was  not  itself  deemed  the  teaching. 

Thus  it  is  clear  that  the  early  Christian  Church  was 
not  unfaithful  to  its  trust,  nor  unmindful  of  the  duty 
imposed  upon  it  by  the  Great  Commission.  It  organized 
Bible-schools  far  and  near,  as  a  means  of  instructing  its 
converts,  and  of  training  its  membership.  And  so  it 
continued  to  do,  so  long  as  it  wisely  followed  the  injunc- 
tions of  its  Divine  Founder.  But  as  it  grew  in  worldly 
prominence  and  lost  in  spiritual  life,  changes  came  in  the 
methods  of  its  training  work.  Its  ritual  services  were 
expanded,  and  its  teaching  exercises  were  diminished. 
"  Teaching  gained  in  proportion  as  ritualism  lost,"  says 
De  Pressense;8  and  conversely,  teaching  lost  as  ritualism 

1  Antiq.,  Bk.  viii.,  ch.  7,  \  12.  '  Ibid.,  Bk.  iii.,  ch.  10,  J  4. 

»  Ibid.,  Bk.  x.,  ch.  1,  fy  6,  7 ;  xiii.,  ch.  4,  g  9. 
•  Ibid.,  Bk.  xiii.,  ch.  4,  \  9.  6  TJU  Apostolic  Era,  Bk.  ii.,  ch.  6,  \  1. 


64  THE  SUNDA  Y- SCHOOL : 

gained.  Or,  as  Proudfit  represents  it,  when  "  the  ecclesi- 
astical spirit  overcame  the  evangelical,  and  the  church 
grew  .  .  .  worldly  and  material  in  all  her  institutions  and 
instrumentalities,  .  .  .  making  more  of  a  splendid  ritual 
than  of  a  pure  faith,  and  magnifying  church  orthodoxy 
above  vital  piety,  .  .  .  catechetical  instruction,  of  course, 
declined."1 

In  the  recently  issued  valuable  work  of  Mr.  Henry  C. 
Lea,  on  the  history  of  the  Inquisition,  it  is  shown  con- 
1  clusively,  by  that  impartial  historian  of  the  religious  his- 
tory of  the  Middle  Ages,  that  the  decline  of  the  spirit- 
ual life  of  the  Church  was  attributable  to  the  neglect,  by 
the  Church,  of  its  educational  function.2  It  is  also  shown 
£>y  Mr.  Lea,  as  it  has  been  shown  by  so  many  other 
historians  before,  that  the  gleams  of  a  purer  life,  and  the 
struggles  toward  a  better  state  of  things,  meantime,  were 
among  and  on  the  part  of  those  who  studied  and  taught 
the  Bible,  and  who  sought  to  secure  Bible  instruction  for 
the  people  generally. 

It  stands  out  most  clearly  in  the  ecclesiastical  history 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  that  where  the  Christian  life  was 
purest,  in  those  times  of  general  decline,  was  where  the 
Bible-school  idea  was  adhered  to  most  closely  as  a  means 
of  religious  instruction  and  training.3    Peculiarly  was  this 

1  See  Proudfit's  article,  as  before  cited. 
8  Hist,  of  the  Inquisition,  Bk.  i.,  chs.  1-6. 

*  The  earlier  form  of  "  catechism,"  or  manual  for  elementary  religious  in- 
struction, consisted  of  the  Creed,  the  Lord's  Prayer,  and  the  Ten  Command- 
ments, with  or  without  explanation  and  comment.  In  this  form  it  shows  itself  in 
the  work  of  "  Kero,  monk  of  St.  Gall  (about  720) ;  Notker,  of  St.  Gall  (d.  912) ; 
Otfried,  monk  of  Weissenbourg(d.  after  870),  and  others"  (Schaffs  Creeds  oj 
Christendom,  I.,  246).  "  One  of  the  earliest — in  fact,  the  first  known  cate- 
chism in  the  English  language — was  written  by  Wyclif.     A  copy  of  it,  in  the 


ITS  VARYING  PROGRESS.  6; 

the  case  with  the  Waldenses,  the  Albigenses,  the  Lollards 
or  Wiclifites,  the  Bohemian  Brethren  or  Hussites,  and  the 
Brethren  of  the  Common  Life.1  Not  the  pure  liturgy,  nor 
yet  the  faithful  pulpit,  but  the  divinely  appointed  Bible- 
school —  in  its  more  primitive  elements — was  the  dis 
tinctive  means  of  their  preservation  from  the  wellnigh 
universal  defection.2 

British  Museum,  bears  the  date  of  1372.  .  .  .  It  was  designed  '  to  teach  simple 
men  and  women  the  right  way  to  heaven.'  The  first  three  of  the  thirteen 
sections  into  which  it  is  divided,  contain  catechisms  on  the  Creed,  the  Lord's 
Prayer,  and  the  Commandments."  (See  Dr.  J.  Hammond  Trumbull's  article 
on  "  Catechisms  of  Old  and  New  England,"  in  The  Sunday  School  Times  for 
September  8,  1883.)  The  "  Primer,"  as  "  a  manual  of  primary  instruction  in 
religious  truth  and  practice,"  finds  mention,  at  about  the  time  of  Wiclif,  in 
Piers  Plowman's  Vision,  and  in  Chaucer's  The  Prioresses  Tale.  Maskell 
{Monumenta  Ritualia  Ecclesia  Anglicanoe,  II.,  xlv)  says  of  the  Primer,  that 
it  "  may  have  been  well  known  in  the  early  days  even  of  the  Anglo-Saxons; 
...  for  there  never  was  a  period,  in  the  history  of  the  English  Church 
when  care  was  not  taken  to  enforce  upon  all  priests  the  duty  of  teaching  their 
people  the  rudiments  of  faith,  in  the  vulgar  tongue,  and  to  provide  books  fitted 
for  that  purpose."  (See  Dr.  J.  Hammond  Trumbull's  article  on  "  The  New 
England  Primer  and  its  Predecessors,"  in  The  Sunday  School  Times  for 
April  29,  1882.) 

1  Schaff  says  {Creeds  of  Christendom,  I.,  569) :  "The  Waldenses  formed 
at  first  no  separate  church,  but  an  ecclesiolain  ecclesia  ['  a  churchette  within 
a  church  '],  a  pious  lay  community  of  Bible  readers.  They  were  well  versed 
in  Scripture,  and  maintained  its  supremacy  over  the  traditions  of  men ;  they 
preached  the  gospel  to  the  poor,  allowing  women  also  to  preach  " — or  rather, 
perhaps,  to  teach  in  this  "  lay  community  of  Bible  readers ; "  as  women  taught 
in  the  catechumenical  school  at  Alexandria,  and  as  they  teach  in  the  Sunday- 
schools  of  to-day.  The  Waldensian  Catechism  presents  important  phases  of 
Scripture  truth.  It "  must  have  been  written  before  1500 ;  while  the  Bohemian 
[Catechism]  in  the  form  in  which  it  was  presented  to  Luther,  first  appeared 
in  print  in  1521  or  1522.  .  .  .  Palacky  brought  to  light  (1869)  a  similar  Cate- 
chism, which  he  derives  from  Hus  before  1414"  (Schaff,  as  above,  I.,  572). 

*  See  Schaff  s  Creeds  of  Christendom,  I.,  246 ;  art.  "  Catechisms,"  in  Schaff- 
;s  Encyc.  of  Relig.  Know I. ;  art.  "Catechumen"  and  art.  "Educa- 
tion," in  Encyc.  Brit.;  and  art.  "  Catechetics "  and  art.  "Catechisms,"  in 
McClintock  and  Strong's  Cyc.  of  Bib.,  Theol.,  and  Eccles.  Lit. 

5 


66  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

An  admirable  illustration  of  this  truth  is  furnished  in 
the  recorded  testimony  of  Reinerius,  an  emissary  from 
Rome  to  the  Waldenses,  in  his  report  concerning  the 
Bible-teaching  prevalent  among  that  people  in  the  thir- 
teenth century.  "  He  who  has  been  a  disciple  [in  their 
fold]  for  seven  days,"  he  said,  "  looks  out  some  one  whom 
he  may  teach  in  his  turn;  so  that  there  is  a  continual 
iftcrease  [of  them].  If  any  would  excuse  himself  [from 
learning]  they  say  to  him,  '  Only  learn  one  word  every 
day,  and  at  the  end  of  the  year  you  will  have  three  hun- 
dred [words]  ;  and  so  [you  will]  make  progress.'  ...  I 
have  heard  one  of  these  poor  peasants  repeat  the  whole 
Book  of  Job  by  heart,  without  missing  a  single  word ; 
and  there  are  others  who  have  the  whole  of  the  New 
Testament  by  heart,  and  much  of  the  Old ;  nor  .  .  .  will 
they  listen  to  anything  else,  saying  that  all  sermons  which 
are  not  proved  by  Scripture  are  unworthy  of  belief." ■ 
The  Waldenses,  by  the  way,  came  originally  from  Lyons, 
where  the  cathedral  catechetical  school  had  long  been  of 
exceptional  efficiency  in  securing  religious  instruction, 
however  intermingled  with  error,  to  the  young.2 

From  the  beginning,  in  short,  all  the  way  down  the 
centuries,  the  history  of  the  Christian  Church  shows  that 
just  in  proportion  as  the  church  Bible-school — the  Sun- 
day-school, as  we  now  call  it — has  been  accorded  the 
place  which  our  Lord  assigned  to  it  in  the  original  plan 
of  his  Church,  has  substantial  progress  been  made  in  the 
extending  of  the  membership,  and  in  the  upbuilding — the 
"edifying" — of  the  body  of  Christian  believers  in  the 

1  Cited  in  Henderson's   The  Vaudois,  p.  102.     See,  also,  Latrobe-Cranz's 
Hist,  of  the  Brethren,  p.  15  f. 

2  See  art.  '*  Waldenses,"  in  Schaff-Herzog's  Encyc. 


ITS  VARYING  PROGRESS.  67 

knowledge  of  God's  Word  and  in  the  practice  of  its  pre- 
cepts. And  just  in  proportion  as  the  Sunday-school 
agency,  or  its  practical  equivalent  under  some  name  or 
form,  has  been  lacking,  or  has  been  ignored,  has  the 
Church  failed  of  retaining  and  continuing  the  vital  power 
of  its  membership. 

Do  not  misunderstand  me  here.  Every  great  reform, 
in  the  Church,  or  in  nominally  religious  communities, 
since  the  days  of  John  the -Baptist  and  of  Peter,  has  been 
brought  about  by  preaching.  Christians  have  been  aroused 
from  their  sloth,  and  sinners  have  been  startled  in  and 
from  their  sins,  by  the  clarion  voice  of  the  herald-preacher. 
Preaching  has  been,  and  is,  and  is  to  be,  the  pre-eminent 
agency  for  the  warning  and  calling  of  sinners,  and  for  the 
exhorting  and  directing  of  saints.  But  the  religious  train- 
ing of  any  people  has  been  attained,  and  the  results  of 
any  great  reformation  have  been  made  permanent,  only 
through  a  process  of  interlocutory,  or  catechetical,  teach- 
ing; such  as  forms  the  distinguishing  characteristics  of 
the  technical  Sunday-school. 

A  few  representative  illustrations  of  this  universal  truth 
are  as  good  as  more.  It  was  by  preaching  that  the  great 
Reformation  of  the  sixteenth  century  was  brought  about; 
but  no  one  of  the  chief  reformers  of  that  period  was  unwise 
enough  to  suppose  that  preaching  was  to  retain  and  to 
build  up  in  the  pure  faith  of  God's  Word  those  who, 
through  preaching,  had  been  rescued  from  the  embraces 
of  error.  Luther  saw  the  need  of  a  system  of  Bible-schools 
in  the  new  Protestant  world,  as  plainly  as  Simon  ben  She- 
tach  saw  that  need  in  the  ancient  Jewish  world.  "  Young! 
children  and  scholars  are  the  seed  and  the  source  of  the 
Church!"  rang  out  the  warning  voice  of  Luther.     "  For 


68  THE  SUNDA  Y-SCHOOL : 

the  Church's  sake,  Christian  schools  must  be  established 
and  maintained,"  he  added ;  "  [for]  God  maintains  the 
Church  through  the  schools."1  Luther  even  went  so  far 
as  to  say  that  a  clergyman  was  not  fairly  fitted  to  be  a 
preacher  unless  he  had  first  been  a  teacher ;  that,  in  fact, 
a  bishop  ought  to  give  proof,  before  being  a  bishop,  that 
he  had  aptness  to  teach.  "  I  wotdd  that  nobody  should 
be  chosen  as  a  minister  if  he  were  not  before  this  a  school- 
master," 2  was  Luther's  putting  of  this  opinion. 

Luther  personally  prepared  two  catechisms,  a  Larger, 
and  a  Smaller,  as  helps  to  religious  teaching ;  and  his  co- 
workers and  successors  prepared  others.  Calvin  took  a 
similar  view  of  the  duty  of  the  Church  to  instruct  the 
young  and  the  ignorant  by  interlocutory  teaching ;  and 
he  also  prepared  two  catechetical  lesson-helps,  or  lesson- 
guides,  first  in  French,  and  afterwards  in  Latin.  These 
catechisms  by  Luther  and  Calvin  were  translated  into 
various  languages,  and  were  used  widely  among  the 
Protestants  of  Europe  and  of  Great  Britain.  Zwingle  and 
Beza  in  Switzerland,  Knox  in  Scotland,  Cranmer  and 
Ridley  in  England,  and  Usher  in  Ireland,  and  many  other 
representative  leaders  in  the  Reformation,  were  alive  to 
the  importance  of  the  revival  of  the  primitive  church- 
school  idea,  as  the  hope  of  stability  and  growth  for  the 
Church  of  Christ.  Just  so  far,  in  fact,  as  this  divinely  com- 
manded method  of  religious  training  was  newly  adopted 
and  adhered  to,  were  the  best  fruits  of  the  Reformation 
preserved  and  transmitted ;  and  where  there  was  chiefest 
lack  in  this  direction,  the  influence  of  the  Reformers  and 
of  their  work  gradually  diminished,  or  faded  away.3 

1  Cited  in  Schumann's  Lehrb.  d.  Paedag.,  p.  144.  »  Ibid. 

»  See  articles  "  Catechisms  "  and  "  Catechetics,"  in  Schaff-Herzog's  Encyc, 


ITS  VARYING  PROGRESS.  69 

Indeed,  had  it  not  been  for  the  rising  up  at  that  time, 
in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  of  a  new  apostle  of  the 
church-school  idea,  and  for  the  wonderful  effectiveness  of 
his  work  of  restoring  to  that  Church  this  primitive  agency 
of  religious  teaching,  it  would  seem  that  the  power  of  the 
Church  of  Rome  as  such  would  have  been  permanently- 
broken,  or  hopelessly  hampered,  by  the  labors  of  the 
reformers.  Ignatius  Loyola,  the  founder  of  the  Society 
of  Jesus,  with  Lainez,  Aquaviva,  Xavier,  and  others  of 
his  immediate  associates,  despairing  of  turning  back  the 
tide  of  battle  against  Rome  and  her  institutions,  as  then 
waged  under  the  pulpit  leaders  of  the  opposing  host,  con- 
ceived the  plan  of  reaching  out  after  the  children  of  the 
combatants,  and  of  rearing  up  in  them  a  new  generation 
of  lovers  and  defenders  of  Rome. 

The  first  great  work  of  the  Jesuits  was  the  establish- 
ment of  religious  schools  for  the  young,  which  were  an 
advance  in  their  methods  on  anything  then  known  to  the 
world.  The  very  ideas  which  prevail  in  the  management 
of  our  best  modern  Sunday-schools,  church  and  mission, 
seem  to  have  been  carried  out  by  the  Jesuits  in  these 
schools  of  their  forming.1  And  it  was  by  this  means  that 
the  Jesuits,  in  a  single  generation,  according  to  the  testi- 
mony of  one  of  their  chief  historians,  becoming  "  masters 
of  the  present  by  the  men  whom  they  had  trained,  and 
disposing  of  the  future  by  the  children  who  were  yet  in 
their  hands,  realized  a  dream  which  no  one  till  the  times 

and  in  McClintock  and  Strong's  Cyc.    See,  also,  Porter's  The  Educational 
Systems  of the  Puritans  and  Jesuits  Compared,  pp.  26-35. 

1  See  Steinmetz's  Hist.  0/ the  Jesuits,  I.,  346-350;  Karl  von  Raumcr's  Gesch. 
i.  Paeaajr.,  1.,  aSSf.;  Ranke's  Hist,  of  the  Popes,  I.,  415-418;  and  Quick'* 
Essays  on  Educational  Reformers,  pp.  2-20. 


70  THE  SUNDA  Y-SCHOQL  -: 

of  Ignatius  had  dared  to  conceive." '  The  verdict  of  his- 
tory on  this  point  is  summed  up  by  President  Porter,  in 
his  suggestion  that  Catholic  and  Protestant  historians  are 
agreed  that  it  was  by  this  religious  school  machinery  that 
the  Jesuits  "  arrested  the  Reformation  in  its  onward  and 
apparently  triumphant  advances,"  and  that  "the  dividing 
line  was  fixed  between  the  Protestant  and  Catholic  sec- 
tions of  Europe,  to  remain  till  now  almost  precisely  where 
it  was  drawn  thirty  years  after  Luther  had  broken  with 
Rome."2  It  was  practically  by  the  Sunday-school  agency 
that  the  Protestant  Reformers  hoped  to  make  permanent 
the  results  of  the  Reformation.  And  it  was  by  a  more 
adroit  and  efficient  use  of  the  Sunday-school  agency,  in 
its  improved  forms,  that  the  Church  of  Rome  stayed  the 
progress  of  the  Reformation.  That  is  the  plain  lesson 
of  history. 

Nor  has  the  Church  of  Rome  ever  forgotten  the  lesson 
learned  in  that  crisis  hour  of  her  history.  The  Council 
of  Trent  recognized  the  peril  of  the  Church  of  Rome 
through  the  Protestant  use  of  catechetical  teaching,  and 
it  gave  chief  prominence  to  wisely  planned  efforts  at  meet- 
ing that  peril.  "  The  heretics  have  chiefly  made  use  of 
catechisms  to  corrupt  the  minds  of  Christians,"3  was  the 
declaration  of  that  Council.  Therefore  "the  Holy  Synod 
rightly  decreed  that  both  [the]  pestilent  preaching  and  the 
writings  of  the  false  prophets  must  be  met  by  opposition ;  "4 
and  felt  it  "  necessary,  even  after  so  many  written  treatises 

1  Cr^tineau  Joly's  Histoire  Religieuse,  Politique,  et  Litteraire  de  la  Com- 
fagnU  de  Jesus,  I.,  5  ;  cited  by  Porter,  in  Educ.  Systems,  p.  23  f. 
2  Porter's  Educ.  Systems,  p.  4. 
8  Preface  to  The  Catechism  of  the  Council  of  Trent,  Question  vi. 
*  Ibid.,  Q.  vii. 


ITS  VARYING  PROGRESS.  J\ 

of  Christian  doctrine,  to  put  forward  a  new  catechism  for 
pastors,  by  the  care  of  an  (Ecumenical  Council,  and  the 
authority  of  the  Sovereign  Pontiff."1  All  pastors  were 
specifically  charged  by  the  Council  of  Trent  with  the  duty 
of  instructing  the  young  in  the  primary  elements  of  the 
Christian  faith.2  And  from  that  day  to  this  the  Church 
of  Rome  has  never,  as  before,  neglected  the  divinely 
appointed  agency  of  Christ's  Church  for  discipling  and 
training  the  young ;  nor  has  it,  since  then,  given  a  second 
place  to  children  in  the  ministrations  of  its  priesthood. 

It  was  in  consequence  of  this  lesson  that  St.  Francis 
Xavier  (who  is  credited  with  the  saying,  "  Give  me  the 
children  until  they  are  seven  years  old,  and  any  one  may 
take  them  afterwards  ")  gave  the  young  and  the  ignorant 
the  first  place  in  his  evangelizing  in  India ;  going  through 
the  streets  of  Goa  ringing  a  bell,  and  entreating  parents 
and  householders  to  send  their  children  and  their  slaves 
to  him  to  be  instructed.3  It  was  in  consequence  of  this 
lesson  that  St.  Carlo  Borromeo  devoted  his  energies  so 
largely  to  the  gathering  and  teaching  of  children  in  Sun- 
day-schools in  his  cathedral  at  Milan,  and  in  his  parish 
churches  near  and  far;  leaving  at  his  death,  in  1584, 
seven  hundred  and  forty-three  of  these  Sunday-schools, 
comprising  more  than  three  thousand  teachers  and  forty 
thousand  scholars.4  It  was  in  consequence  of  this  lesson 
that  Cardinal  Bellarmine,  while  Archbishop  of  Capua,  a 
little  later  than  Borromeo's  time,  aroused  himself  to  the 
determination  of  securing  elementary  religious  instruction 

1  Preface  to  The  Catechism  of  the  Council  of  Trent,  Question  viii. 
»  Ibid.,  Q.  xi. 
*  Sec  Mithode  de  Saint- Sulpice,  dans  la  Direction  des  Catechismes,  pp.  i-ia. 
*/6id. 


72  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

to  every  child  in  his  arch-diocese,  he  setting  an  example 
to  his  under  pastors  by  going  personally  into  the  parishes, 
and  gathering  about  him  the  children  and  their  friends 
for  their  familiar  teaching ;  preparing  meanwhile,  as  an 
aid  in  this  work,  simple  catechisms,1  one  at  least  of  which 
is  an  approved  text-book  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Sunday- 
schools  of  England  and  the  United  States  to-day.2  It  is 
in  consequence  of  this  lesson  that  the  policy  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church,  far  more  than  that  of  the  Protestant 
churches,  has  from  that  time  to  this  been  in  the  direction 
indicated  by  these  labors  of  Loyola  and  Xavier  and  Bor- 
romeo  and  Bellarmine. 

This  policy  it  is  that  was  illustrated  by  the  recorded 
conversation  of  a  Roman  Catholic  priest  with  one  of  our 
Protestant  Episcopal  bishops  in  the  United  States,  some 
years  ago,  when  the  priest  said  to  the  bishop,  in  sub- 
stance :  "  What  a  poor,  foolish  people  are  you  Protestants ! 
You  leave  the  children,  until  they  are  grown  up,  pos- 
sessed of  the  devil ;  then  you  go  at  the  work  of  reclaiming 
them  with  horse,  foot,  and  dragoons.  We  Catholics,  on 
the  other  hand,  know  that  the  children  are  plastic  as  clay 
in  our  hands,  and  we  quietly  devote  ourselves  first  to 
them.  When  they  are  well  instructed  and  trained,  we 
have  little  fear  as  to  their  future."  And  this  policy  of 
the  Church  of  Rome,  resulting  as  it  did  from  this  lesson 
in  the  history  of  that  Church,  has  been  recognized  by 
many  a  wise  Protestant  scholar  and  thinker — all  along 
these  last  three  centuries — as  worthy  of  more  extensive 

1  See  Methode  de  Saint- Sulpice,  dans  la  Direction  des  Catechismes,  pp.  1-12. 

*  "  In  1870,  the  (Ecumenical  Council  recommended  the  general  use  of  the 
Schema  de  Parvo,  a  small  catechism,  which  is  little  more  than  an  abstract  of 
Bellarmine's  "  (art.  "  Catechism,"  in  Encyc.  Brit.). 


ITS  VARYING  PROGRESS.  73 

imitation  by  all  lovers  of  God's  truth,  and  all  lovers  of 
divinely  indicated  methods  of  working.1 

Bishop  Lancelot  Andrewes,  of  the  Church  of  England, 
for  example,  learned  as  he  was  in  the  Bible  text  and  in 
ecclesiastical  antiquities,  writing  on  this  subject  within  a 
century  after  the  Reformation,  pointed  back  to  the  teach- 
ings of  Scripture  and  of  Christian  history  in  proof  of  the 
fact  that  interlocutory  religious  teaching  was  the  hope,  as 
it  was  the  duty,  of  the  Christian  Church.  It  was  by  this 
means,  he  said,  that  Christianity  made  all  its  earlier  con- 
quests; "and  when  catechising  was  left  off  in  the  Church, 
it  [the  Church]  soon  became  darkened  and  overspread 
with  ignorance.  The  Papists,  therefore,  acknowledge  that 
all  the  advantage  which  the  Protestants  have  gotten  of 
them  [since  the  Reformation],  hath  come  by  this  exer- 
cise [of  catechetical  instruction]  ;  and  it  is  to  be  feared 
that  if  ever  they  get  ground  of  us,  it  will  be  by  their  more 
exact  and  frequent  catechising  than  ours."2  A  century 
and  a  half  later,  these  words  of  Bishop  Andrewes  seemed 
like  fulfilled  prophecy. 

It  is  not  that  the  various  Protestant  churches  did  not, 
at  the  time  of  the  Reformation,  realize  the  importance  of 
the  Sunday-school  idea ;  nor  yet  that  they  did  not  form 
plans  for  the  prosecution  of  certain  phases  of  the  Sunday- 
school  work ;  but  it  is  that  various  causes  combined,  as 
can  be  shown,  to  render  the  formed  plans  insufficient,  or 
ineffective,  for  the  purpose  in  view,  and  finally  to  bring 

1  A  valuable  treatise  on  the  religious  instruction  of  children  by  the  Church 
from  the  Roman  Catholic  stand-point,  is  the  " Mithode  de  Saint- Sulpice,  dans 
la  Direction  des  Catichismes,  as  above  cited.  It  treats  of  the  history,  literature, 
and  methods  of  the  subject,  quite  fully.  Incidentally  it  gives  proof  of  the 
prevalence  of  the  Sunday-school  idea  in  the  schools  which  it  represents. 
*  The  Pattern  of  Catechistical  Doctrine,  p.  8. 


74  THE  SUNDA  Y- SCHOOL : 

them  into  neglect.  All  the  representative  Reformed 
churches  were  explicit,  at  the  start,  in  recognition  of  the 
divinely  ordained  mission  of  the  church-school,  or  Sun- 
day-school. The  views  of  Luther,  on  this  point,  have 
been  already  cited.1  In  the  Heidelberg  Catechism,  where 
the  question  is  asked,  "  What  doth  God  require  in  the 
fourth  commandment  ? "  the  answer  comes,  "  First,  that 
the  ministry  of  the  gospel  and  the  schools  be  main- 
tained." In  the  Scotch  Book  of  Discipline  there  stands 
the  acknowledgment  that  "  one  of  the  two  ordinary  and 
perpetual  functions  that  travel  in  the  word  is  the  office  of 
the  doctor,  who  may  be  also  called  .  .  .  catechiser ;  that 
is,  teacher  of  the  catechism  and  rudiments  of  religion."2 
And  this,  in  fact,  was  the  Protestant  position  generally. 

The  General  Assembly  of  the  Church  of  Scotland,  in 
the  first  year  of  its  existence,  provided  that  while  there 
should  be  two  public  services  on  every  Lord's  Day,  the 
first  service  should  include  worship  and  sermonizing,  and 
the  second  should  be  given  to  worship  and  the  cate- 
chising of  the  young  and  ignorant.3  Again,  a  canon  in 
the  Church  of  England,  which  dates  back  to  1603,  and 
which  has  never  been  repealed,  requires  that  "  every  par- 
son, vicar,  or  curate,  upon  every  Sunday  or  holy  day, 
before  evening  prayer,  shall,  for  half  an  hour  and  more, 
examine  and  instruct  the  youth  and  ignorant  persons  of 
his  parish  in  the  Ten  Commandments,  the  Articles  of  the 
Belief,  and  in  the  Lord's  Prayer ;  and  shall  diligently  hear, 
instruct,  and  teach  them  the  Catechism  set  forth  in  the 

1  See  p.  67  f.,  ante. 
*  See  Abridgment  of  the  Acts  of  the  General  Assemblies  of  the  Church  of 
Scotland,  p.  76  f. 

3  See  Hetherington's  History  of  the  Church  of  Scotland,  p.  55. 


ITS  VARYING  PROGRESS.  75 

Book  of  Common  Prayer."1  The  minister  who  fails  of 
attention  to  this  duty  is,  on  his  first  offense,  by  the  pro- 
visions of  this  canon,  to  be  reported  to  his  bishop  and  to 
receive  a  reprimand.  A  second  offense  is  to  subject  him 
to  suspension ;  and  on  the  third  offense  he  is,  if  deemed 
incorrigible,  to  be  excommunicated.  It  would  seem, 
indeed,  as  if  the  Reformers  realized  that  the  hope  of  the 
future  pivoted  on  the  continued  and  faithful  ministry  of  the 
Church  to  the  young ;  and  yet  that  the  plans  of  the  Reform- 
ers to  secure  the  continuance  of  this  ministry  were  practi- 
cally a  failure.     And  here  is  a  mystery  worth  looking  into. 

A  primary  cause  of  the  decline  of  the  Sunday-school 
work  in  Protestant  churches  generally,  after  the  new 
prominence  given  to  it  by  the  Reformers,  seems  to  rest 
in  the  widespread  perversion  of  the  very  means  designed 
for  its  prosecution.  It  was  in  order  to  promote  inter- 
locutory teaching  that  catechisms,  presenting  truth  in 
the  form  of  question  and  answer,  were  prepared  in  such 
fullness  and  variety  by  Protestant  church  leaders.2  But 
the  use  of  those  catechisms  widely  degenerated  into  a 
perfunctory  service  of  asking  rote  questions  with  the  pur- 
pose of  securing  memorized  rote  answers  in  reply,  apart 
from  any  necessary  interchange  of  thought  or  of  knowl- 
edge between  teacher  and  pupil.  And  thus  it  came  to 
pass  that  catechism  using  stood  in  the  way  of  catechetical 
teaching;  the  stepping-stone  becoming  a  stumbling-block. 

So,  again,  the  sermon,  or  the  homily,  was  brought 
by  the  Reformers  to  its  earlier  place  as  an  adjunct  of 

1  Canon  lix.,  of  1603.  See  Gibson's  Codex  Juris  Ecclesiastici  Anglicani, 
tit.  xix,  cap.  1,  p.  453. 

*  See  List  of  Catechisms  in  Mitchell's  Catechisms  of  the  Second  Reformation, 
pp.  lxxxv-xci. 


76  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

all  principal  services  of  worship,  as  a  means  of  popu- 
lar instruction  in  religious  truth.  But  the  sermonizing 
being  wholly  separated  from  catechising,  under  the  new 
arrangement,  lost  its  primitive  place  in  a  conference  be- 
tween teacher  and  taught,  and  degenerated  widely  into  a 
continuous  discourse  to  passive,  and  often  to  inattentive 
and  unintelligent  hearers.  It  is  so  much  easier,  on  the 
one  hand,  to  preach  than  it  is  to  teach ;  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  to  hear  than  it  is  to  learn ;  it  is  so  much  easier  to 
tell  what  one  knows  or  thinks,  or  what  one  thinks  he 
knows,  than  it  is  to  find  out  another's  spiritual  lack  and 
needs  and  capabilities,  and  to  endeavor  to  supply  them 
wisely, — that  it  is  hardly  to  be  wondered  at,  however 
much  it  is  to  be  regretted,  that  preaching  (especially 
under  the  pressure  of  the  seeming  needfulness  of  polem- 
ical discourses1)  gradually  overshadowed  teaching  in  the 
work  of  the  ministry  in  Protestant  churches ;  the  children, 
meanwhile,  having  practically  only  a  form  of  religious 
instruction  without  its  power.  And  thus  it  was  that 
the  teaching  of  the  young  wellnigh  died  out  from  the 
churches  of  Protestantism  through  the  misuse  and  abuse 
of  the  agencies  devised  for  its  promotion. 

All  this  was,  however,  an  evil  of  administration  rather 
than  of  primary  purpose  and  plan ;  for  it  is  evident  from 
the  records  of  history  that  the  Reformers  had  no  thought 
of  overshadowing  Bible-school  teaching  by  pulpit  preach- 
ing, nor  yet  of  making  the  reciting  and  hearing  of  the 

1  In  the  Church  of  England,  very  soon  after  the  enactment  of  the  Canon  of 
1603,  enjoining  catechising,  controversial  preaching  on  dogmas  usurped  the 
place  of  catechising ;  and,  in  1622,  King  James  directed  that  catechising  take 
the  place  of  afternoon  sermons.  Archbishop  Laud  again  enforced  catechising 
instead  of  sermonizing  on  Sunday  afternoons.  (See  Perry's  History  of  tht 
Church  of  England,  pp.  398,  415). 


ITS  VARYING  PROGRESS.  77 

catechism  a  chief  element  in  catechetical  teaching.  The 
catechism  was,  in  every  instance,  prepared,  not  as  the 
lesson  itself,  but  as  a  lesson-analysis,  a  lesson-guide,  a 
lesson-paper,  duly  authorized,  for  the  time  being,  by  a 
Church  Lesson-Committee.  It  outlined  the  subject  of 
study,  but  it  was  not  designed  to  be  the  object  of  study. 
No  prominent  compiler  of  a  catechism  in  the  realm  of 
religious  truth,  from  the  days  of  Philo  Judaeus  to  the 
Westminster  Divines,  can,  in  fact,  have  supposed  that  his 
work  would  be  followed  in  the  blind  and  mechanical 
fashion  which  subsequently  prevailed  so  widely  for  the 
making  of  catechism  teaching  a  thing  of  dread  to  the 
child,  and  of  unconcern  to  the  teacher.1 

Luther  made  himself  clear  on  this  point.  In  his  Pref- 
ace to  his  Smaller  Catechism  he  enjoined  it  upon  teachers 
to  see  to  it  that  their  scholars  not  only  knew  what  was 
said  in  the  catechism  answers,  but  knew  what  was  meant 
by  them ;  "  to  take  these  forms  [of  statement]  before 
them,  and  explain  them  word  by  word."2  And  as  show- 
ing that  these  answers,  even  when  thus  explained  and 
understood,  were  in  no  sense  to  be  the  limit  of  the  pupil's 
teaching,  Luther  claimed  that  every  child  under  cate- 
chetical instruction  ought  to  know  the  truths  of  the  entire 
gospel,  the  facts  of  the  whole  life  and  work  of  our  Lord, 
by  the  time  he  was  nine  or  ten  years  of  age.3  "Not  only 
must  they  learn  the  word  [of  God]  by  heart,"  again  he 

1  "  May  we  not  have  just  reason  to  fear,"  said  Dr.  Isaac  Watts,  (  Works,  III., 
214,)  in  speaking  of  the  use  of  the  Westminster  Catechism,  "  that  the  holy 
things  of  our  religion  have  not  only  been  made  the  aversion  of  children,  but 
have  been  exposed  to  disreputation  and  contempt,  by  teaching  them  such  a 
number  of  strange  phrases  which  they  could  not  understand?" 
*  See  Kostlin's  Life  of  Luther,  p.  369  f. 
■  See  Karl  von  Raumer's  Gesch.  d.  Paedag.,  I.,  169  L 


7$  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

said,  .  .  .  "but  they  must  be  asked,  verse  by  verse,  and 
must  answer,  what  each  [verse]  means,  and  how  they 
understand  it."1  Luther's  Larger  Catechism  was  not 
even  arranged  in  the  form  of  question  and  answer,  but  it 
was  none  the  less  a  "catechism,"  in  name  and  in  fact, 
for  being  in  the  form  of  the  lesson-guides  of  the  Early 
Church  catechumens. 

Even  before  the  Reformation  there  were  formal  injunc- 
tions in  force  in  the  Church  of  England,  requiring  all 
curates  to  explain  to  their  hearers  every  sentence  of  the 
substance  of  the  primers  which  those  hearers  were  to 
memorize.  Thus,  in  1536-38,  an  injunction  to  the 
curates  ran:  "Ye  shall,  every  Sunday  and  Holy -day 
throughout  the  year,  openly  and  plainly  recite  to  your, 
parishioners,  twice  or  thrice  together,  or  oftener  if  need 
require,  one  particle  or  sentence  of  the  Paternoster,  or 
[of  the]  Creed,  in  English,  to  the  intent  [that]  they  may 
learn  the  same  by  heart :  and  so  from  day  to  day  [ye  are] 
to  give  them  one  little  lesson  or  sentence  of  the  same,  till 
they  have  learned  the  whole  Paternoster  and  Creed  in 
English  by  rote.  And  as  they  be  taught  every  sentence 
of  the  same  by  rote,  ye  shall  expound  and  declare  the  un- 
derstanding of  the  same  unto  them."  2 

And  when  a  "  Catechism  for  Children "  was  given  its 
place  in  the  Prayer  Book  of  Edward  VI.,3  that  catechism 

1  Luther's  Deutsche  Messe  (1526) ;  cited  in  Gieseler's  Eccles.  Hist.,  IV.,  562. 

2  Quoted  from  Burnet's  History  of  the  Reformation,  in  Procter's  History  oj 
the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  p.  390.  Comp.  Burnet's  Hist,  of  the  Ref,  I., 
364>  5°7- 

3  "  When  the  great  hindrance  to  reformation  was  removed  by  the  death  oi 
Henry,  the  instruction  of  the  young  and  the  ignorant  was  among  the  first  par- 
ticulars to  which  the  advisers  of  Edward  directed  their  efforts,  in  the  Injunc- 
tions of  1547 ;  and  as  soon  as  a  Book  of  Service  was  prepared,  a  Catechism 


ITS  VARYING  PROGRESS.  79 

was  by  no  means  understood  as  covering  the  substance 
of  a  Christian  child's  religious  instruction.  On  the  con- 
trary, it  merely  covered  the  points  at  which  the  child  was 
to  be  examined  by  the  bishop,  when  brought  to  him  for  1 
confirmation.1  Various  other  catechisms  were  in  use, 
more  or  less  widely,  in  the  Church  of  England,  in  the 
days  of  Edward  and  of  Elizabeth  ;2  and  in  order  to  secure 
uniformity  in  the  religious  teaching  of  the  young,  the 
Convocation  of  1 562  took  steps  for  securing  a  catechism 
that  should  be  the  standard  of  religious  instruction  in  all 
the  schools.3  This  catechism  was  prepared  by  Dean 
Nowell,  of  St.  Paul's,  although  it  made  free  use  of  the 
material  of  earlier  authors,  including  the  work  of  Bishop 
Poynet.4     Delayed  in  its  issue  by  various  causes,  it  was 

was  placed  in  it,  that  the  exposition  of  these  Christian  elements  might  not 
depend  on  the  care  or  ability  of  the  curates  "  (Procter's  Hist.  0/ Book  of  Com. 
Prayer,  p.  390). 

1 "  The  end  and  purpose  of  catechism  [of  catechising]  is,  in  good  and  natural 
order,  fitly  applied  to  serve  the  good  use  of  confirmation  by  the  bishop,  at 
which  time  the  bishop  doth  not  teach  but  examine  "  (Thomas  Norton  in  his 
Preface  to  the  English  translation  of  Nowell's  Catechism,  in  1570  See  Parker 
Society's  edition  of  No-welts  Catechism,  p.  109). 

*See  Procter's  Hist,  of  Book  of  Com.  Prayer  (p.  392),  with  citation  from 
Cardwell's  Documentary  Annals. 

* "  One  considerable  thing  more  passed  the  hands  of  this  Convocation 
[1562]  ;  .  .  .  viz.,  the  Catechism  in  Latin  for  the  use  of  schools,  and  also  for 
a  brief  summary  of  religion  to  be  owned  and  professed  in  this  reformed 
Church.  And  this  is  the  same  with  that  which  is  commonly  known  to  this 
day  by  the  name  of  Nowell's  Catechism  "  (Strype's  Annals  of  the  Reformat 
Hon,  Vol.  I.,  pt.  i.,  p.  525  f.). 

4  "An  intention  was  formed  in  the  time  of  Edward  and  Elizabeth,  to  have 
another  authorized  Catechism  [besides  that  in  the  Prayer  Book]  for  the  instruc- 
tion of  more  advanced  students,  and  especially  those  in  public  schools.  .  .  . 
The  original  of  this  work  is  ascribed  to  Poynet,  who  was  Bishop  of  Win- 
chester during  Gardiner's  deprivation.  It  was  published  in  Latin  and  in 
English  in  1553,  and  is  supposed  to  have  had  the  approval  both  of  Cranmer 


80  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

finally  issued  in  1570.  Originally  written  in  Latin,  it  was 
translated  into  English  and  Greek ;  !  and  several  abridg- 
ments or  condensations  of  it  were  made.  While  entitled 
Catechismus  Puerorum  ("Children's  Catechism  ")2  it  was 
specifically  designed  "  to  be  a  guide  to  the  younger  clergy 
in  the  study  of  divinity,  as  containing  the  sum  and  sub- 
stance of  our  reformed  religion."3  In  other  words  it  was, 
like  every  other  true  catechism,  an  indication  of  the  lines 
along  which  the  clergyman  or  schoolmaster  should  teach 
the  children  and  youth  of  his  charge.  In  1571  a  canon 
enjoined  the  exclusive  use  of  Nowell's  Catechism — in  one 
or  another  of  its  forms — in  the  work  of  religious  instruc- 


and  also  of  the  Convocation  which  sanctioned  the  Articles  in  1552  "  (Procter's 
Hist,  of  Book  of  Com.  Prayer,  p.  391  f.).  Comp.  Strype's  Memorials  of  Abp. 
Cranmer,  p.  294.  "  Nowell  informs  the  Bishops  that  he  had  not  scrupled  to 
avail  himself  of  the  labors  of  others  who  had  preceded  him  in  this  department 
of  theology,  both  as  regarded  arrangement  and  matter.  .  .  .  The  Catechisms 
of  Poinet  and  Calvin  are,  perhaps,  those  with  which  Nowell's  is  most  fre- 
quently and  verbally  coincident"  (Corrie's  Memoir  of  Nowell,  in  Parker  So- 
ciety's edition  of  Nowell's  Catechism,  p.  vii).  In  drawing  up  his  catechism, 
Nowell  "  made  much  use  of  the  Catechism  set  forth  toward  the  latter  end  of 
King  Edward's  reign  "  (Strype's  Annals  of  the  Ref.,  Vol.  I.,  pt.  i.,  p.  525  f.). 

1  See  Strype's  Annals  of  the  Ref,  Vol.  I.,  pt.  i.,  p.  525  f. ;  Corrie's  Memoir 
of  Nowell,  in  Parker  Soc.  ed.  of  Nowell's  Catechism,  p.  vii ;  Procter's  Hist, 
of  Book  of  Com.  Prayer,  p.  393. 

2  Corrie  (Memoir,  as  above,  pp.  v,  vi)  shows  that  the  Catechismus  Pue- 
rorum approved  by  this  lower  house  of  Convocation  March  3,  1562,  was  the 
same  as  that  published  by  Nowell  in  1570. 

8  "  Besides  this  [Prayer  Book  Catechism],  there  was  a  Catechism  set  forth 
by  Edward  VI.,  that  is  often  mentioned  in  our  accounts  of  the  Reformation  ; 
which  King  Edward,  by  his  letters  patent,  commanded  to  be  taught  in  ail 
schools,  and  which  was  examined,  reviewed  and  corrected,  in  the  Convocation 
of  1562,  and  published  with  these  improvements  in  1570,  to  be  a  guide  to  the 
younger  clergy  in  the  study  of  divinity,  as  containing  the  sum  and  substance 
of  our  reformed  religion  "  (Gibson's  Codex  Juris  Ecclesiastici  Anglicani, 
tit.  xix.,  cap.  1). 


ITS  VARYING  PROGRESS.  8l 

tion  by  clergymen  or  schoolmasters;1  and  its  use  in  this 
way  was  continued  for  years.2  In  incidental  proof  that 
catechising  was  understood  to  require  more  ability  than 
is  involved  in  merely  hearing  the  catechism  recited,  an 
order  of  Convocation  of  1588  is  to  the  effect  that  "no 
unlearned  unable  person  to  catechise  shall  be  admitted  to 
any  cure;"  that  is,  no  person  so  unlearned  as  to  be  unable 
to  teach  the  truths  outlined  in  the  catechism,  shall  have  a 
place  of  curate.3 

The  recently  published  discussions  of  the  Westminster 
Assembly  of  Divines  over  the  form  of  the  Shorter  Cate- 
chism issued  by  that  body,  show  that  the  idea  of  having 
the  answers  in  that  lesson-help  blindly  memorized  by 
children  was  not  in  the  minds  of  its  framers,  save  as  an 
evil  to  be  guarded  against  religiously.  Some  of  the  more 
prominent  divines,  including  Palmer,  who  was  called 
"the  best  catechist  in  England,"  and  who  presided  over 
the  Assembly's  Committee  on  the  Catechisms  until  his 
death,4  desired  to  insert  a  series  of  minor,  or  subordinate, 
questions  and  answers  with  each  principal  question  and 
answer,  as  a  means  of  making  the  meaning  of  that  main 
answer  clear  to  the  common  mind.5     The  objection  made 

1  See  Cardwell's  Synodalia,  I.,  128. 

*  "  This  Catechism  [of  Nowell's]  was  printed  again  [after  1570]  in  the  year 
1572;  and  in  Greek  and  I^atin  in  1573  ;  and  so  from  time  to  time  had  many 
impressions ;  and  it  was  used  a  long  time  in  all  schools  even  to  our  days ;  and 
pity  it  is,  it  is  now  so  disused  "  (Strype's  Life  of  Abp.  Parker,  p.  301). 

*  Cardwell's  Synodalia,  II.,  572. 
4  See  Biographical  Sketch  of  the  Rev.  Herbert  Palmer,  in  Mitchell's  Cate- 
chisms of  the  Second  Reformation,  pp.  li-liii ;  also  p.  x.     See,  also,  Hethering- 
ton's  History  of  the  Westminster  Assembly,  p.  259. 

*  See  Palmer's  Endeavor,  etc.,  in  Mitchell's  Catechisms,  as  above,  pp.  93-118. 
See,  also,  Dr.  Briggs's  article  **  The  Westminster  Assembly,"  in  The  Presby- 
Urian  Review,  for  January,  1880,  pp.  155-162;  Mitchell'*  Tht  Westminster 

6 


82  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

to  this  plan  was  not  that  the  main  answer  was  in  itself 
sufficiently  simple  and  clear,  but  that  if  the  necessary 
helps  to  its  simplifying  were  given  in  set  form,  this  might 
lead  to  an  undue  dependence  on  them,  and  so  to  the 
neglect  of  the  essential  interlocutory  process  of  teaching, 
which  every  teacher  must  choose  for  himself  according 
to  the  requirements  of  his  particular  scholar.  The  fear 
was  that  the  catechism  lesson-outline  might  thus  come 
to  be  deemed  self-explanatory,  and  its  answers  memorized 
just  as  they  stood ;  and  so,  as  one  of  the  divines  expressed 
it,  these  misguided  "people  will  come  to  learn  things 
by  rote,  and  can  answer  as  a  parrot,  but  not  understand 
the  thing."1 

Assembly,  pp.  407-441 ;  and  Minutes  of  the  Sessions  of  the  Westminster  Assem- 
bly, pp.  91-94. 

1See  Minutes  of  the  Sessions  of  the  Westminster  Assembly,  pp.  91-94; 
also  Mitchell's  The  Westminster  Assembly,  pp.  409-420.  In  advocating  the 
introduction  of  minor  explanatory  questions  as  a  help  to  the  understand- 
ing of  the  answers  to  the  main  questions  in  the  Catechism,  Rutherford  said: 
"  [It  is]  said  [that]  the  Apostles  did  not  use  such  a  way.  I  think  they  did 
use  it."  As  to  the  proper  method  of  catechising,  he  said:  "It  should 
be  in  the  plainest  and  easiest  way.  It  is  a  feeding  of  the  lambs."  And  in 
enforcement  of  his  claim  that  the  Catechism  could  not  explain  itself,  he  added : 
"  There  is  as  much  art  in  catechising  as  in  anything  in  the  world.  It  may  be 
doubted  whether  every  minister  do  understand  the  most  dexterous  way  of 
doing  it."  What  would  Rutherford  have  said  to  the  modern  claim,  that  for  a 
teacher  or  parent  to  hear  a  child  repeat  the  main  answers  to  the  Westminster 
Catechism,  is  to  teach  the  Catechism !  Seaman,  also,  insisted  that  while  "  the 
greatest  care  should  be  taken  for  the  answer"  to  every  question  in  the  Cate- 
chism, in  order  to  have  it  present  truth  accurately,  yet  that  answer  was  "to 
be  formed  not  to  the  model  of  knowledge  that  the  child  hath,  but  to  that 
[which]  the  child  ought  to  have."  In  other  words,  each  Catechism  answer 
was  designed  to  define  a  truth  to  which  the  child  was  to  be  led  up  by  wise 
teaching,  not  to  present  a  statement  of  truth  which  the  child  should  repeat 
unintelligently.  Mr.  Delmy  opposed  any  set  form  of  simple  explanatory 
questions,  because  the  catechiser  needed  "  to  inquire  into  the  measure  of 
the  knowledge  of  the  party  "  catechised,  and  to  frame  his  own  questions 
accordingly. 


ITS  VARYING  PROGRESS.  83 

The  opinion  of  the  Westminster  Assembly  on  the  point 
of  a  blind  and  unintelligent  memorizing  of  the  answers 
to  its  catechism  by  children,  was  expressed  by  Gillespie, 
when  he  said,  in  the  discussion  over  its  framing:  "It 
never  entered  into  the  thoughts  of  any  to  tie  to  the 
words  and  syllables  in  that  catechism." l  As  to  the  neces  - 
sity  of  a  free  interlocutory  method  in  the  teaching  of 
truth,  his  conclusion  was  that  which  is  the  conclusion  of 
the  best  teachers  of  the  ages ;  namely,  that  "  the  light 
of  nature  and  natural  reason  leads  men  this  way  in  the 
explanation  of  things." 2  It  would  seem,  in  short,  that 
the  very  method  of  "learning"  the  Westminster  Cate- 
chism, which  has  been  more  common  than  any  other 
in  the  last  two  centuries,  and  which  even  has  many 
advocates  and  admirers  to-day,  is  a  method  which  the 
Westminster  Divines  themselves  stigmatized  as  "parrot" 
learning,  and  as  contrary  to  "the  light  of  nature  and 
natural  reason."3 

1  Minutes  of  the  Sessions  of the  Westminster  Assembly,  p.  93. 

*  Ibid. 

•  If  there  is  one  fundamental  principle  in  the  teaching  process,  on  which 
all  modern  masters  in  the  theory  and  art  of  teaching  are  agreed,  it  is  that  the 
true  order  of  learning  involves  a  knowledge  of  the  thought  or  thing  as  prece- 
dent, in  the  child's  mind,  to  the  memorizing  of  the  words  which  express  that 
thought,  or  which  declare  that  thing.  Roger  Ascham,  earliest  of  great  Eng- 
lish teachers,  protested  against  the  method  of  blind  memorizing,  by  which  the 
learners'  knowledge  "  was  tied  only  to  their  tong  and  lips  and  neucr  ascended 
vp  to  the  braine  and  head,  and  therefore  was  sone  spitte  out  of  the  mouth 
againe  "  (  The  Scholemaster,  p.  88).  Comenius,  whose  pioneer  teaching  work 
was  hardly  less  prominent  on  the  continent  of  Europe  than  was  Ascham's  in 
England,  was  equally  positive  on  this  point.  "  In  teaching,"  he  said,  "  let  the 
inmost  part,  i.  e.,  the  understanding  of  the  subject,  come  first ;  thin  let  tin- 
thing  understood  be  used  to  exercise  the  memory"  (cited  in  Quick's  Essays 
on  Educational  Reformers,  p.  57).  John  Locke  showed  his  wisdom  in  a  like 
declaration  :    "  I  hear  'tis  said,"  he  wrote,  "  that  children  should  be  employed 


84  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

The  more  eminent  contemporaries  and  immediate 
successors  of  the  Westminster  Divines  were  at  one  with 
them  in  holding  that  true  catechising  is  a  very  different 
matter  from  adhering  to  the  mere  letter  of  the  catechism. 
Richard  Baxter,  in  his  "  Reformed  Pastor "  and  other 
works,  pressed  the  importance  and  explained  the  methods 
of  catechising;  which  he  deemed  the  divinely  approved 
plan  of  discipling  those  whom  Christ's  ministers  can  reach.1 
He  insisted  that  catechising  is  a  more  difficult,  as  it  is  a 
more  important,  work  than  sermonizing;  and  he  cited 
Archbishop  Usher's  opinion  to  the  same  effect.2  Baxter's 
illustrations  of  catechising  along  the  lines  of  the  West- 
minster Catechism,  and  of  simpler  catechisms  than  this,3 
consist  of  the  simplest  inter-colloquial  as  well  as  inter- 
in  getting  things  by  heart,  to  exercise  and  improve  their  memories.  I  could 
wish  this  were  said  with  as  much  authority  of  reason  as  it  is  with  forwardness 
of  assurance,  and  that  this  practice  were  established  upon  good  observation 
more  than  old  custom."  Of  the  use  of  the  memory,  he  added:  "  Charging 
it  with  a  train  of  other  people's  words,  which  he  that  learns  cares  not  for,  will, 
I  guess,  scarce  find  the  profit  answer  half  the  time  and  pains  employed  in 
it"  ("Thoughts  Concerning  Education,"  in  Locke's  Works,  III.,  80  f.). 
Pestalozzi,  the  father  of  modern  education  in  Europe,  was  emphatic  and  un- 
qualified in  his  assertion  that  "nothing  should  be  learned  by  rote  without 
being  understood  "  (See  Barnard's  Pestalozzi  and  Pestalozzianism,  p.  25). 
"Words  which  are  the  signs  of  things,"  he  said,  "  must  never  be  taught  the 
child  till  he  has  grasped  the  idea  of  the  thing  signified"  (Quick's  Essays,  p. 
190).  And  so  it  has  been  held  by  all  our  later  students  of  the  theory  and 
practice  of  teaching.  As  Dr.  John  S.  Hart  has  expressed  it :  "  This  is  the 
true  mental  order.  Knowledge  first,  then  memory.  Get  knowledge  ;  then 
keep  it.  Any  other  plan  is  like  attempting  to  become  rich  by  inflating  your 
bags  with  wind  instead  of  gold  ;  or,  attempting  to  grow  fat  by  bolting  food  in 
a  form  which  you  cannot  digest "  {In  the  School-Room,  p.  58). 

1  *'  The  Reformed  Pastor,"  in  Practical  Works,  XIV.,  246-354. 
2  Ibid.,  p.  318. 
h  Baxter  prepared  at  least  three  elementary  catechisms,  after  the  publication 
of  the  Westminster  Catechism  (see  his  Practical  Works,  Vols.  XVIII.,  XIX.). 


ITS  VARYING  PROGRESS.  85 

locutory  instruction  in  the  truths  of  the  catechism,  as 
adapted  to  the  needs  of  the  particular  pupil  in  hand.1 

Dr.  Isaac  Watts  was  an  enthusiast  in  the  work  of  teach- 
ing children  catechetically,  and  a  radical  in  his  hostility 
to  the  unintelligent  memorizing  of  the  Westminster  Cate- 
chism by  children.  "  The  business  and  duty  of  the  teacher 
[of  children],"  he  said,  "is  not  merely  to  teach  them 
words,  but  [to  teach  them]  things.  Words  written  on 
the  memory  without  ideas  or  sense  in  the  mind,  will 
never  incline  a  child  to  his  duty,  nor  save  his  soul.  The 
young  creature  will  neither  be  the  wiser  nor  the  better 
for  being  able  to  repeat  accurate  definitions  and  theorems 
in  divinity  without  knowing  what  they  mean." 2    In  rebut- 

1  Practical  Works,  XIV.,  316-322.  "  Why  is  not  catechising  more  used  by 
pastors  and  parents  ?  "  asks  Baxter  (ibid.,  XV.,  76).  And  then  he  adds  by  way  1 
of  explanation  :  "  I  mean  not  the  bare  words  unexplained  without  the  sense, 
nor  the  sense  in  a  mere  rambling  way  without  a  form  of  words  ;  but  the  words 
explained."  Of  the  difficulties  of  wise  catechising  he  says  :  "  I  must  say  that 
I  think  it  an  easier  matter  by  far  to  compose  and  preach  a  good  sermon,  than 
to  deal  rightly  with  an  ignorant  man  [by  the  interlocutory  method  of  teaching] 
for  his  instruction  in  the  necessary  principles  of  religion  "  (ibid.,  XIV.,  318). 
Giving  illustrations  of  questioning  as  a  test  of  the  learner's  knowledge,  in  the 
study  of  catechism  truths,  Baxter  says :  "  So  contrive  your  question  that  they 
may  perceive  what  you  mean,  and  that  it  is  not  a  nice  definition,  but  a  neces- 
sary solution,  that  you  expect.  Look  not  after  words,  but  things,  and  there 
[thereto]  leave  them  [if  you  can  do  no  better]  to  a  bare  yea  or  nay,  or  the 
mere  election  of  one  of  the  two  descriptions  which  you  yourself  shall  pro- 
pound" (ibid.,  XIV.,  322).    Comp.,  also,  #*'</.,  II.,  99;  V.,53of.;  XIX., 4, 12. 

*  Works,  III.,  208.  Watts  claimed  that  the  Westminster  Assembly  did  not  \ 
design  the  Shorter  Catechism  for  blind  memorizing  by  young  children,  but 
prepared  it  as  an  outline  of  doctrine  by  which  teachers  shouTcT  be  guided  in 
their  work  of  instruction.  "  The  Assembly's  Larger  Catechism,"  as  he  said, 
"  w:is  not  composed  for  children,  but  for  men  ;  to  give  them  a  large  and  full  » 
view  of  all  the  parts  of  our  holy  religion.  The  Shorter  Catechism  is  but  an 
abridgement  of  the  Lir^cr.  ...  A  multitude  of  the  same  Latinized  and 
theological  terms  are  used  in  it  as  in  the  Larger"  (ibid.,  III.,  210).  He  re- 
marked that  more  than  twenty  persons  "  who  had  a  most  high  esteem  for  the 


86  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

tal  of  the  even  then  common  suggestion  that  there  is  a 
possible  gain  to  children  in  the  unintelligent  memorizing 
of  statements  of  doctrine  which  it  may  be  they  will  live 
to  know  the  meaning  of,  Dr.  Watts  said,  pithily:  "Words 
are  but  as  the  husks  of  this  divine  food,  whereby  the 
souls  of  children  must  be  nourished  to  everlasting  life. 
Though  the  food  is  divine,  it  is  possible  the  husk  may  be 
too  hard  for  them  to  open.1  Is  it  the  best  method  for 
feeding  and  nourishing  the  bodies  of  young  children,  to 
bestow  upon  them  [uncracked]  nuts  and  almonds,  in 
hope  that  they  will  taste  the  sweetness  of  them  when 
their  teeth  are  strong  enough  to  break  the  shell  ?  Will 
they  not  be  far  better  nourished  by  children's  bread,  and 
by  food  which  they  can  immediately  taste  and  relish?"2 
This  thought  of  Dr.  Watts  suggests  the  telling  title  of 
Dr.  Bushnell's  sermon  on  a  kindred  theme:  "God's 
thoughts  fit  bread  for  children." 

Even  those  simpler  forms  of  catechism  which  Dr.  Watts 

Assembly's  [Shorter]  Catechism,  and  a  great  and  just  veneration  for  it,"  had 
already,  before  himself,  prepared  elementary  catechisms  designed  to  precede 
the  use  of  the  Assembly's.  One  of  these  writers  he  quoted,  as  saying: 
"  When  the  venerable  Assembly  composed  this  form  of  instruction,  it  seems 
that  few  of  themselves  thought  it  designed  or  fitted  for  babes "  {ibid.,  III., 
211).  Watts  argued,  as  modern  educators  would  argue,  that  to  cause  a  child 
to  memorize  the  Catechism  without  understanding  it,  is  to  raise  in  that  child's 
mind  an  added  barrier  to  his  subsequent  understanding  of  the  Catechism ; 
hence  "  whatever  catechisms  are  impressed  on  the  memories  of  children  in 
their  most  tender  years,  they  [the  children]  should  be  taught  the  meaning 
of  them,  as  far  as  possible,  as  fast  as  they  learn  them  by  heart"  {ibid., 
HI.,  215). 

1  "I  have  been  informed,"  says  Watts,  {ibid.,  III.,   249,)  "of  one  child 
who  was  asked  what  the  chief  end  of  man  was,  and  he  answered,  '  His  head ; ' 
another  being  asked  the  same  question  answered  '  Death ; '  neither  of  them 
taking  in  the  true  idea  or  meaning  of  the  words." 
2  Ibid.,  III.,  an  f. 


) 


ITS  VARYING  PROGRESS.  87 

himself  prepared  as  lesson-helps  for  children  were  not 
designed  by  him  for  the  children's  blind  memorizing.  In 
using  one  of  these,  as  in  using  the  larger  ones,  "  parents 
and  teachers  should  use  their  utmost  skill,"  he  said,  "  in 
leading  the  child  into  the  meaning  of  every  question, 
when  they  ask  it,  and  of  every  answer  when  the  child 
repeats  it,  that  the  child  may  not  hear  and  learn  mere 
words  and  syllables  instead  of  the  great  things  of  God 
and  religion."  And  this  seems  to  have  been  the  pur- 
pose of  all  catechism  makers  of  two  and  three  centuries 
ago.  The  catechisms  were  intended  as  guides  in  Bible- 
study,  not  as  substitutes  for  it,  in  the  religious  instruction 
of  children.1  It  was  by  the  perversion  of  this  agency  that 
the  help  became  a  hindrance,  and  that  the  hopes  of  the 
Reformers  and  their  earliest  successors  for  a  permanent 
re -establishment  of  the  primitive  Bible -school  agency 
were  frustrated. 

In  America  it  was  much  the  same  as  it  was  in  Europe. 
The  founders  of  New  England  had  no  thought  of  building 
up  a  Christian  commonwealth  without  the  Bible-school 
training  agency.  But  as  they  looked  upon  the  Church 
and  the  State  as  having  a  common  oversight  of  this  work, 
and  upon  the  work  itself  as  covering  seven  days  in  the' 
week,  their  week-day  schools  were  their  Bible-schoolsj 
according  to  the  ancient  Jewish  theory.    Quite  naturally, 

1  Principal  Currie,  while  at  the  head  of  the  Church  of  Scotland  Training 
College,  Edinburgh,  expressed  himself  emphatically  on  this  point.  Writing 
of  the  manner  and  method  of  religious  instruction  for  young  children,  he  said 
{Early  and  In/ant  School- Education,  p.  136) :  "  An  abstract  style  of  teaching 
w  unsuitable,  however  clear  our  proofs  or  simple  our  phraseology.  The 
'  Catechism  '  is  the  exponent  of  this  style  of  teaching,  and  can  never,  therefore, 
be  the  vehicle  0/ instruction  by  itself.  Its  forms  of  expression  arc  mere  words 
*o  the  child." 


88  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

therefore,  they  gave  the  whole  of  the  Lord's  Day  to  wor- 
ship and  sermonizing,  upon  the  presupposed  basis  of  a 
week's  catechetical  teaching. 

Nor  did  they  suppose  that  the  memorizing  and  reciting 
of  catechism  answers  was  catechetical  teaching.  John 
Cotton  said,  on  this  point:  "The  excellent  and  neces- 
sary use  of  catechising  young  men  and  novices  ...  we 
willingly  acknowledge;  but  little  benefit  have  we  seen 
reaped  from  set  forms  of  questions  and  answers  devised 
by  one  church,  and  imposed  by  necessity  on  another."1 
Cotton  Mather,  also,  urged  that  the  aim  of  catechetical 
teaching  was  an  understanding  of  Bible  truth.  In  an 
appeal  to  his  brother  ministers,  in  the  dedication  of  his 
"  Maschiljor,  The  Faithful  Instructor,"  he  emphasized  the 
uselessness  of  attempting  to  train  the  young  and  ignorant 
by  "  well-composed  sermons ; "  "  whereas,"  he  said,  "  if 
you  will  be  at  the  pains  (and  can  any  pains  be  too  much 
for  the  precious  and  immortal  souls  of  your  neighbors, 
O  ye  that  have  the  care  of  souls  ?)  to  instruct  them  in  the 
interlocutory  way  of  teaching,  which  we  call  catechising, 
you  have  the  experience  of  all  ages  to  make  you  hope 
that  vast  would  be  the  consequence,  vast  the  advantage."3 

But  gradually,  in  New  England,  the  week-day  schools 
became  thoroughly  secularized.  Catechetical  teaching 
there,  came  first  to  be  limited  to  a  perfunctory  teaching 
of  the  Westminster  Catechism ;  and  then  to  drop  out 
altogether.  And  in  this  way  it  finally  came  about  that 
where  the  Christian  founders  of  New  England  had  planned 

1  Cited  by  Dr.  J.  Hammond  Trumbull  in  his  article  "  Catechisms  of  Old 
and  New  England,"  in  The  Sunday  School  Times  for  September  8,  1883. 

a  Cited  by  Dr.  J.  Hammond  Trumbull,  in  his  second  article,  as  above,  i» 
The  Sunday  School  Times  for  September  15,  1883. 


ITS  VARYING  PROGRESS.  89 

for  even  more  of  teaching  than  of  sermonizing,  the  teach- 
ing  was  given  up  and  only  the  sermonizing  remained. 
An  untaught  generation  —  untaught  in  any  form  of  the 
divinely  appointed  Bible-school — was  a  sure  result;  and 
the  religious  decline  of  New  England  was  inevitable.1 
Here,  as  elsewhere,  was  illustrated  that  truth  of  ecclesi- 
astical history  which  Bishop  Jebb  as  an  observant  teacher 
recorded,  that  all  through  the  Christian  centuries,  "  in  1 
exact  proportion  as  catechising  [free  and  familiar  inter- 
locutory teaching,  as  he  explained  it2]  has  been  practised 
or  neglected,  in  the  same  proportion  have  the  public  faith 
and  morals  been  seen  to  flourish  or  decline."3 

Great  preachers,  also,  as  well  as  great  teachers,  all  the 
way  along  in  the  years  of  progress  and  of  decline  after 
the  Protestant  Reformation,  were  as  emphatic  in  their 
affirmations  of  the  importance  of  interlocutory  teaching, 
as  God's  agency  of  religious  training,  as  they  were  of  any 
other  primitive  Bible  truth  rescued  by  the  Reformation 

1  All  the  lessons  of  history  would  seem  to  show,  that  while  interlocutory 
Bible  teaching  has  tended,  even  under  the  most  unfavorable  circumstances, 
to  preserve  the  religious  vitality  of  the  people  practicing  it,  an  adherence  to 
the  unintelligent  or  parrot  reciting  of  any  set  catechism  has  been  followed  by 
a  departure  from  the  teachings  of  that  catechism  by  the  people  practicing  it. 

*  "  T,et  not  the  common  prejudice  be  entertained,  that  catechising  is  a  slight 
and  trifling  exercise,  to  be  performed  without  pains  and  preparation  on  your 
p.irt.  This  would  be  so  if  it  were  the  mere  rote-work  asking  and  answering 
of  the  questions  in  our  Church  Catechism  :  but  to  open,  to  explain,  and  famil- 
iarly to  illustrate  these  questions  in  such  a  manner  as,  at  once,  to  reach  the 
understanding  and  touch  the  affections  of  little  children,  is  a  work  which 
demands  no  ordinary  acquaintance,  at  once,  with  the  whole  scheme  of  Chris- 
tian theology,  with  the  philosophy  of  the  human  mind,  and  with  the  yet  pro- 
founder  mysteries  of  the  human  heart.  It  has,  therefore,  been  well  and  truly 
said,  by  I  recollect  not  what  writer,  that  a  boy  may  preach,  but  to  catechise 
requires  a  man  "  (Jebb's  Pastoral  Instructions,  p.  198). 
'  Ibid.,  p.  196. 


90  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

from  the  oblivion  of  the  Dark  Ages.  It  seems  strange, 
indeed,  as  one  reads  their  testimonies  and  appeals,  that 
they  did  not  have  more  permanent  power  over  the  thought 
and  action  of  the  churches  in  which  these  men  were  rep- 
resentative leaders.  Godly  and  earnest  Bishop  Hall  said, 
toward  the  close  of  his  well-filled  life:1  "  There  is  no  one 
thing  of  which  I  repent  so  much  as  not  to  have  bestowed 
more  hours  in  this  public  exercise  of  catechisme  [of  inter- 
locutory teaching]  ;  in  regard  whereof  I  would  quarrel 
with  my  very  sermons;  and  wish  that  a  great  part  of 
them  had  been  exchanged  for  this  preaching  conference. 
Those  other  divine  discourses  enrich  the  braine  and  the 
tongue;  this  settles  the  heart;  those  others  are  but  the 
descants  to  this  plain  song."2 

Henry  More,  eminent  as  a  divine,  a  philosopher,  and  a 
preacher,  in  the  Church  of  England,  in  the  days  of  Bishop 
Hall,  and  Archbishop  Usher,  and  Richard  Baxter,  was 
equally  explicit  with  these  other  men  of  God  on  this 
point.  "  Concerning  preaching,"  he  said,3  "  that  which  is 
most  remarkable  is  this,  that  whereas  there  are  three  chief 
kinds  thereof,  namely,  catechising,  expounding  a  chap- 
ter, and  preaching,  usually  so  called, — whereof  the  first 
[catechising]  is  the  best,  and  the  last  [preaching,  or  ser- 
monizing] is  the  least  considerable  of  them  all, — this  worst 
and  last  is  the  very  idol  of  some  men,  and  the  others 
[are]  rejected  as  things  of  little  worth.  But  assuredly 
they  [the  expounding  of  a  chapter,  and  the  catechising] 
are  of  most  virtue  for  the  effectual  planting  the  gospel 

1  He  died  in  1656.  2  Cited  in  Jebb's  Pastoral  Instructions,  p.  367  f. 

3  In  The  Great  Mystery  of  Godliness  (1660),  p.  37  f. ;  cited  by  Dr.  J.  Hammond 
Trumbull,  in  his  article,  as  above,  in  The  Sunday  School  Times  for  September 
IS.  I883. 


ITS  VARYING  PROGRESS.  9 1 

in  the  minds  of  men;  and  of  the  two,  as  I  said,  cate- 
chising is  the  better  because  it  enforceth  the  catechised 
to  take  notice  of  what  is  taught  him  ;  and  what  is  taught 
him  is  not  so  voluminous  but  that  he  can  carry  it  away 
and  remember  it  forever." 

George  Herbert,  model  Christian  pastor  as  he  was,  put 
this  truth  sententiously  when  he  said,  in  his  "  Country 
Parson:"  "At  sermons  and  at  prayers  men  may  sleep 
or  wander,  but  when  one  is  asked  a  question,  he  must 
disclose  what  he  is." l  And  sturdy  John  Owen  was  no 
less  positive  in  his  convictions  at  this  point  than  the  most 
zealous  Churchman.  "  More  knowledge,"  he  said,  "  is 
ordinarily  diffused,  especially  among  the  young  and  igno- 
rant, by  one  hour's  catechetical  exercise,  than  by  many 
hours' continual  discourse."2 

Churchman  and  Puritan,  great  preacher  and  great 
teacher,  in  the  days  of  new  foundation-laying  in  Protes- 
tant Christendom,  were  at  one  in  this  opinion ;  as,  indeed, 
it  would  seem  that  every  intelligent  Bible  student  and 
Christian  thinker  must  always  be:  for  in  no  sphere  save 
in  that  of  religion — where  alone  interlocutory  teaching  is 

.  *  George  Herbert's  Remains,  p.  165.  That  Herbert  had  no  thought  of  con- 
fining catechetical  teaching  to  set  questions  and  answers,  is  evident  when  he 
says  (p.  163) :  "  Many  say  the  Catechism  by  rote,  as  parrots,  without  piercing 
into  the  sense  of  it ;  "  and,  again,  when  he  counsels  the  varying  of  the  ques- 
tions according  to  the  capacity  of  the  learner,  in  order  to  "  draw  out  of 
ignorant  and  silly  souls,  even  the  dark  points  of  religion."  "  Catechising  in 
its  true  and  original  sense,"  said  Bishop  Law,  a  century  later  than  Herbert, 
"  implies  something  more  than  the  bare  running  over  of  an  old  form  [even] 
though  that  [form]  consists  of  proper  questions  and  answers,  and  contains 
whatsoever  is  needful  for  faith  and  practice."  Archdeacon  Bather,  who  cites 
this  statement  of  Law,  cites  also,  with  approval,  the  yet  earlier  statement  of 
Dean  Comber,  that  "  sermons  can  never  do  good  upon  an  uncatechised_cojt 
gregation"  (see  Hintson  the  Art  of  Catechising,  pp.  6,  171). 
~"^r  ClietTby  Dr.  Steel  in  The  Christian  Teacher  in  Sunday  Schools,  p.  I  at. 


92  THE  SUN  DA  Y-  SCHO  OL  : 

divinely  enjoined — was  there  ever  attempted  the  folly  of 
teaching  primary  truths,  to  the  young  and  the  ignorant, 
by  unbroken  discourse.  Perhaps  the  facts  and  the  argu- 
ments in  this  entire  case  have  never  been  put  more 
concisely  and  tellingly  than  in  the  words  of  the  loyal  and 
royal  old  English  preacher,  Dr.  Robert  South.  "  Nay," 
he  said,  "  I  take  schoolmasters  to  have  a  more  powerful 
influence  upon  the  spirits  of  men  than  preachers  them- 
selves; ...  it  being  seldom  found  that  the  pulpit  mends 
what  the  school  has  marred.  .  .  .  And  for  my  own  part  I 
never  thought  a  pulpit,  a  cushion,  and  an  hourglass,  such 
necessary  means  of  salvation,  but  that  much  of  the  time 
and  labor  which  is  spent  about  them,  might  be  much 
more  profitably  bestowed  in  catechising  youth  from  the 
desk ;  preaching  being  a  kind  of  spiritual  diet  upon  which 
people  are  always  feeding,  but  never  full ;  and  many  poor 
souls,  God  knows  too,  too  like  Pharaoh's  kine,  much 
the  leaner  for  their  full  feed.  And  how,  for  God's  sake, 
should  it  be  otherwise?  For  to  preach  to  people  without 
principles  [without  a  basis  of  established  convictions]  is  to 
build  where  there  is  no  foundation,  or  rather  where  there 
is  not  so  much  as  ground  to  build  upon.  But  people 
are  not  to  be  harangued,  but  catechised  [instructed],  into 
principles :  and  this  is  not  the  proper  work  of  the  pulpit, 
any  more  than  threshing  can  pass  for  sowing.  Young 
minds  are  to  be  leisurely  formed  and  fashioned  with  the 
first  plain,  simple,  and  substantial  rudiments  of  religion. 
And  to  expect  that  this  should  be  done  by  preaching,  or 
force  of  lungs,  is  just  as  if  a  smith,  or  artist  who  works 
in  metal,  should  think  to  frame  and  shape  out  his  work 
only  with  his  bellows." 1 

1  South's  Sermons  :  Sermon  49,  "  The  Virtuous  Education  of  Youth." 


ITS  VARYING  PROGRESS.  93 

That  the  bellows  has  an  important  part  in  the  work  of 
bringing  the  gathered  coals  to  a  glow  at  the  spiritual 
forge,  so  that  they  may  heat  the  metal  to  a  fitness  for  its 
hammering  and  shaping,  no  one  will  question.  But  the 
advantage  of  other  agencies  besides  the  bellows,  in  pref- 
erence to  a  reliance  upon  that  alone,  in  the  proper  work 
of  the  spiritual  forge-tender,  is  well  illustrated  in  a  com- 
parison of  the  labors  of  Whitefield  and  Wesley,  in  the 
English  reformation  of  the  eighteenth  century,  in  which 
they  toiled  together.  Whitefield  had  the  greater  bellows 
power;  and  the  hardest  iron  softened  in  the  coals  which 
kindled  and  burned  under  the  breath  of  his  preaching.1 
Yet  he  made  little  use  of  any  other  agency  than  that ; 
while  Wesley  took  the  pinchers  and  the  hammer  of  the 
class-meeting  agency,  and  saw  to  it  that  every  individual 
member  of  the  church  organization  put  into  operation  by 
him  was  personally  reached  and  trained  through  an  inter- 
locutory exercise,  week  by  week,  year  in  and  year  out. 
And  now  that  which  we  know  of  Whitefield's  work  is 
chiefly  in  the  recorded  testimony  of  men  who  tell  how 
the  fires  burned  when  he  blew  the  bellows;  while  the 
gleam  of  new  forges  are  seen  all  the  world  over,  as  a 
result  of  Wesley's  conformity,  in  his  methods  of  training, 
to  the  divinely  appointed  plan  of  church  formation  and 
church-life  maintaining. 

In  spite,  however,  of  the  lessons  of  the  Protestant  Ref- 

1  This  figure  of  the  bellows,  as  applicable  to  the  preacher,  seems  to  have 
been  in  the  mind  of  Whitefield  himself,  when  he  wrote  to  Governor  Belcher, 
concerning  a  visit  to  Boston  by  his  friend  Gilbert  Tennent,  as  following  up 
his  own  beginning  there :  "  This  week  Mr.  Tennent  proposes  to  set  out  for 
Boston,  to  blow  up  the  divine  flame  recently  kindled  there."  See  Home,  the 
School  and  the  Church,  V.,  167. 


94  THE  SUNDA  V-  SCHO  OL. 

ormation  in  its  progress  and  in  its  checking ;  in  spite 
of  the  concurrent  testimony  of  great  preachers  and  great 
teachers  all  along  the  centuries ;  in  spite  of  the  uniform 
indications  of  all  ecclesiastical  history;  in  spite  of  the 
specific  injunctions  of  the  great  Head  of  the  Church, — 
interlocutory  Bible-teaching  again  declined  in  prominence 
in  the  Protestant  churches  of  Europe,  of  Great  Britain, 
and  of  America,  during  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries,  as  it  had  declined  in  the   universal  Christian 
Church  in  the  eight  or  ten  centuries  preceding  the  six- 
teenth.    Here  and  there,  as  similarly  through  the  Middle 
Ages,  there  were  those  who  continued  faithful  to  God's 
plan  for  the  Church  teaching  of  the  young ;  and  who  were 
blessed  and  were  a  blessing  accordingly.     The  Mora- 
vians, for  example,  lineal  descendants  of  the  Hussites, 
never  wholly  intermitted  this  method  of  working.     They 
continued  to  give  the  first  place  to  the  Bible,  and  their 
first  care  to  the  children,  in  the  work  of  religious  instruc- 
tion.    There  were  local  churches,  also,  in  every  great 
body  of  Protestant  Christians,  which  were  distinguished 
for  their  recognition  of  the  child-teaching  duty  of  the 
Church,  while  that  duty  was  ignored  or  neglected  so 
widely  in  their  communion  at  large.     But  these  instances 
were  exceptional.     It  seemed,  indeed,  as  if,  in  the  varying 
progress  of  the  Christian  centuries,  the  Sunday-school  idea 
had  less  prominence  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
than  in  the  third  and  fourth  centuries.     And  this  outlook 
gave  little  hope  to  the  Church  or  to  the  world. 


LECTURE   III. 

THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL:     ITS  MODERN  REVIVAL 
AND  EXPANSION. 


III. 

THE  SUNDA  Y  SCHOOL  :     ITS  MODERN  REVIVAL 
AND  EXPANSION. 

Religious  Declension  in  the  Eighteenth  Century. —  Mid -century 
Revivals. —  Zinzendorfs  and  Wesley's  Work  among  Children. 
— The  Sunday-school  Beginnings  of  Robert  Raikes. — Nature 
and  Progress  of  this  Movement. —  Its  Influence  in  England  and 
Elsewhere. — Sunday-schools  in  America. — Illustrations  of  their 
Power. — As  Seen  by  Foreigners. — As  Imitated  Abroad. —  Im- 
proved Sunday-school  Methods. — The  International  Lesson 
System. — Growth  in  Popular  Bible  Study. — The  Sunday-school 
of  To-day. 

In  whatever  aspect  it  be  viewed,  the  contrast  between 
the  religious  life  of  the  Protestant  world  in  the  sixteenth 
century  and  in  the  eighteenth,  is  a  sad  one.  The  de- 
cadence of  moral  and  spiritual  power  in  the  Protestant 
nations  of  Europe  and  America,  as  a  whole,  despite  its 
partial  checks  by  religious  revivals  on  both  sides  of  the 
ocean,  continued  with  generally  accelerated  force  to  the 
latter  third  of  the  eighteenth  century ;  with  its  culmina- 
tion in  the  volcanic  outburst  of  the  French  Revolution, 
and  the  accompanying  earthquake  tremblings  of  the 
moral  world. 

On  this  point  all  historians  are  practically  at  one.  In 
Germany  the  period  in  question  is  characterized,  by  the 
church  historian  Kurtz,  as  "  the  years  of  spiritual  fam- 

7  97 


98  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

ine."1  Of  the  rationalistic  cyclone  which  burst  over  his 
land  at  the  close  of  that  period,  he  says:  "The  storm 
came  from  abroad;  but  it  was  invested  with  the  mighty 
power  of  the  spirit  of  the  age ;  and  it  found  a  dissolution 
and  agitation  going  on  within  which  brought  sympathies 
and  allies  to  it  from  all  sides,  and  promoted  the  transition 
of  the  one  extreme  into  the  other."2  De  Pressense, 
writing  of  the  corresponding  religious  decline  in  France, 
ascribes  its  origin,  as  does  Kurtz,  to  countries  beyond 
his  own;  but  its  effects  he  finds  both  at  home  and 
abroad.  "Nothing  is  so  sad,"  he  says,  "as  the  religious 
history  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Piety  languishes; 
science  there  is  none,  at  least  on  the  side  of  the  defend- 
ers of  Christianity.  In  England  and  in  Germany  a 
parching  wind  blows  over  hearts  and  minds.  There  is 
preached  in  the  Protestant  pulpits — in  those  which  are 
standing — a  religion  without  grandeur,  without  myste- 
ries; which  has  neither  the  boldness  of  philosophy,  nor 
that  of  faith."3 

Looking  at  England  from  the  stand-point  of  whatever 
historical  writer  we  turn  to,  we  find  much  the  same  state 
of  things  described  there.  A  historian  of  English  litera- 
ture says  of  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century :  "  It  was 
remarkable  for  the  low  tone  of  manners  and  sentiment ; 
perhaps  the  lowest  that  ever  prevailed  in  England."4  A 
historian  of  English  jurisprudence  says  of  the  same  period: 
"  The  upper  classes  were  corrupt  without  refinement ;  the 
middle,  gross  without  humor;  and  the  lower,  brutal  with- 

1  Text- Book  of  Church  History,  II.,  308.  2  Ibid.,  II.,  277. 

8  The  Church  and  the  French  Revolution,  p.  15. 

*  Shaw's  Manual  of  English  Lit.,  p.  315. 


ITS  MODERN  REVIVAL.  99 

out  honesty."1  Bishop  Ryle,  with  the  evangelical  sym- 
pathies of  a  Low  Churchman,  says:  "The  state  of  this 
country,  in  a  religious  and  moral  point  of  view,  in  the 
middle  of  last  century,  was  so  painfully  unsatisfactory 
that  it  is  difficult  to  convey  any  adequate  idea  of  it. 
English  people  of  the  present  day,  who  have  never  been 
led  to  inquire  into  the  subject,  can  have  no  conception  of 
the  darkness  that  prevailed.  From  the  year  1700  till 
about  the  era  of  the  French  Revolution,  England  seemed 
barren  of  all  that  is  really  good.  How  such  a  state  of 
things  can  have  arisen  in  a  land  of  free  Bibles  and  pro- 
fessing Protestantism  is  almost  past  comprehension.  .  .  . 
There  was  darkness  in  high  places,  and  darkness  in  low 
places;  darkness  in  the  court,  the  camp,  the  Parliament, 
and  the  bar;  darkness  in  country,  and  darkness  in  town ; 
darkness  among  rich,  and  darkness  among  poor;  —  a 
gross,  thick,  religious  and  moral  darkness ;  a  darkness 
that  might  be  felt."2 

A  more  recent  history  of  the  English  Church  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  from  the  stand-point  of  a  stauncher 
Churchman,  while  aiming  to  show  that  the  state  of  things 
in  that  church  was  not  so  bad  as  is  pictured  by  Bishop 
Ryle,  bears  added  testimony  to  the  general  decline  in 
religion  and  morals  then  existing  in  England.  "  That  lax 
morality  and  religious  indifference  prevailed  more  or  less 
among  all  classes  during  this  period,"  it  says,  "  we  learn 
from  the  concurrent  testimony  of  writers  of  every  kind 
and  creed.     Turn  where  one  will,  the  same  melancholy 

1  Phillimore's  History  of  the  Law  of  Evidence,  p.  546;  cited  in  Forsyth's 
Novels  and  Novelists  of  the  Eighteenth  Century,  p.  17. 

a  The  Christian  Leaders  of  the  Last  Century,  p.  13  f. 


IOO  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

picture  is  presented  to  us."1  Finally,  such  impartial  and 
careful  historians  as  Lord  Mahon,2  and  Lecky,3and  Green,4 
multiply  detailed  facts,  and  citations  of  contemporaneous 
opinion,  in  evidence  of  a  measure  of  ignorance,  of  irre- 
ligion,  and  of  immorality  in  the  English  community 
generally,  in  the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
which  it  is  not  easy  now  to  realize.  As  in  the  case  of  the 
French  and  German  historians,  the  English  writers  on 
this  period  attribute  the  causes  of  the  decline  to  influences 
beyond  their  own  country;  and  they  find  occasion  for 
gratulation  in  the  thought  that  "  if  England  was  morally 
and  spiritually  in  low  estate  at  this  period,  she  was,  at 
any  rate,  in  a  better  plight  than  her  neighbors."5 

America  shows  much  the  same  decline  in  morals  and 
religion  during  the  eighteenth  century  as  England  and  the 
continent  of  Europe,  with  a  similar  attempt  on  the  part 
of  historians  to  prove  that  its  origin  was  in  an  influence 
which  came  from  abroad.  Dr.  Dorchester,  in  connection 
with  his  valuable  compilation  of  facts  in  this  line,  says : 
"The  corruption  of  manners,  working  downward  through 
English  society  during  the  reigns  of  William  III.,  Queen 
Anne,  and  the  first  two  Georges,  extended  to  American 
shores,  changing  the  moral  aspects  of  the  people.  In 
the  first  third  of  the  eighteenth  century  this  deterioration 
was  very  plain.     The  drinking  habits,  hitherto  very  mod- 

1  Abbey  and  Overton's    The  English   Church  in  the  Eighteenth  Century, 
p.  302  f.     See,  also,  pp.  5,  25  f.,  303-310. 

2  History  of  England  from  17 13  to  1783,  VII.,  330. 

5  History  of  England  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,  Vol.  II.,  ch.  9 ;  Vol.  VI, 
ch.  23. 

*  History  of  the  English  People,  Bk.  ix.,  chs.  1-4. 

6  The  English  Church  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,  p.  311.    See,  also,  Lecky's 
Hist.  ofEng.,  II.,  691. 


ITS  MODERN  REVIVAL.  IOI 

erate,  were  increased,  though  [they  were]  not  as  bad  as 
at  the  close  of  the  century."  l  Referring  to  the  revivals 
under  Edwards  and  Whitefield,  in  1735-45,  he  says: 
"  They  were  an  incalculable  blessing  to  the  Colonial 
churches  and  communities,  checking  for  a  time  the  spread 
of  immorality.  But  there  speedily  followed  a  long  and 
troublous  period  (1 750-1 800)  and  its  distracting  events — 
the  French  and  Indian  wars ;  the  conflicting  agitations 
preceding  the  Revolutionary  War;  the  war  itself,  with 
the  usual  depraving  influences;  .  .  .  the  general  infusion 
of  European  skepticism  and  manners ;  and  the  spread  of 
New  England  rum." 2  And  he  adds  that  "  a  detailed 
statement  of  American  manners  in  the  last  quarter  of  the 
eighteenth  century  will  exhibit  a  condition  of  immorality 
having  no  later  parallel  on  our  shores." 

In  his  famous  funeral  sermon  on  Dr.  Nathanael  Emmons 
(which  is  said  to  have  been  read  in  advance  to  its  subject 
by  its  author),  the  Rev.  Thomas  Williams  expressed  him- 
self in  similar  terms  of  the  moral  aspects  of  the  years 
following  the  Revolutionary  War.  "  The  scenes  and 
events,"  he  says,  "  which  arose  after  the  establishment  of 
our  national  independence,  in  this  country,  in  the  Church 
of  God  on  earth,  and  among  the  nations  of  the  world, 
during  his  [Dr.  Emmons's]  ministry,  were  the  most 
astonishing  that  have  occurred  in  the  records  of  unin- 
spired history.  In  his  day,  the  conspiracy  of  infidels 
and  atheists  against  religion,  government  and  humanity, 
against  truth  and  peace,  order  and  liberty,  shook  the 
foundations  of  kingdoms  and  nations ;  and  attempted  to 
destroy  from  the  earth  the  Church  and  kingdom  of  God, 

»  The  Problem  of  Religious  Progress,  p.  173.  *  Ibid.,  p.  177. 


102  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

and  the  name  and  glory  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  In 
his  day,  the  'three  unclean  spirits,  like  frogs,  were  coming 
from  the  mouth  of  the  dragon  and  from  the  mouth  of 
the  beast  and  from  the  mouth  of  the  false  prophet.'1 .  .  . 
Through  their  influence  impiety,  infidelity  and  inhu- 
manity, delusion,  disorder  and  wickedness  in  every  form, 
have  arisen  in  New  England,  and  in  other  parts  of  the 
world,  above  what  was  ever  before  known  on  earth. 
Error,  folly  and  vanity,  declension,  lukewarmness  and 
stupidity,  have  seized  and  destroyed  many  churches  in 
this  land;  and  have  reached  every  church  and  town,  every 
neighborhood  and  family."2 

The  first  President  Dwight,  of  Yale,  in  commenting 
on  the  sad  state  of  things  in  this  last-named  period,  says 
of  its  immediate  causes :  "  Europe  .  .  .  consigned  to 
these  states  a  plentiful  supply  of  the  means  of  corruption. 
From  France,  Germany,  and  Great  Britain,  the  dregs  of 
infidelity  were  vomited  upon  us.  From  the  'Systhne  de 
la  Nature '  and  the  *  Philosophical  Dictionary,'  down  to 
the  'Political  Justice'  of  Godwin,  and  the  'Age  of  Rea- 
son,' the  whole  mass  pf  pollution  was  emptied  in  upon 
us  as  a  deluge."3  A  little  later  Dr.  Lyman  Beecher, 
looking  back  upon  this  time,  said  with  like  emphatic 
earnestness :  "  When  that  mighty  convulsion  took  place, 
which  a  second  time  burst  open  the  bottomless  pit,  and 
spread  darkness  and  dismay  over  Europe,  every  gale 
brought  to  our  shores  contagion  and  death.  Thousands 
at  once  breathed  the  tainted  air,  and  felt  the  fever  kindle 

1  Rev.  16 :  13. 

1  Discourse  on  the  Official  Character  of  Nathanael  Emmons,  p.  67  f. 

3  Dwight's  Travels,  IV.,  380. 


ITS  MODERN  REVIVAL.  103 

in  the  brain.  A  paroxysm  of  moral  madness  and  terrific 
innovation  ensued."1 

As  to  Xhcfact  of  the  existing  decline  in  public  morals 
and  in  religious  life  on  both  sides  of  the  ocean  in  the 
latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  there  would  seem  to 
be  no  room  for  question ;  but  as  to  its  primary  cause y  the 
reasons  generally  given  by  historians  are  fairly  open  to 
challenge.  Even  though  it  be  shown  that  influences  of 
evil  are  at  work  in  the  world,  is  that  in  itself  sufficient  to 
account  for  the  failure  of  the  Church  of  Christ  to  maintain 
its  purity  and  its  power  ?  Is  the  Church,  indeed,  depend- 
ent for  the  savor  of  its  saltness  on  the  measure  of  good 
which  it  absorbs  from  the  community  about  it?  Or  is  it 
its  very  mission  to  be  at  its  best  when  the  world  is  at  its 
worst?  Rightly  furnished,  the  Church  of  Christ  is  proof 
against  all  outside  evil.  When  the  Church  fails  to  with- 
stand evil,  and  when  its  spiritual  life  declines,  the  cause 
of  trouble  is  to  be  sought  within  the  Church,  and  not 
beyond  it.  Then  is  the  time  to  look  for  the  neglect,  or 
for  the  misuse,  by  the  Church,  of  God's  appointed  means 
and  methods  in  the  line  of  its  legitimate  working. 

If  the  families  of  Christian  missionaries  in  a  heathen 
land  were,  one  after  another,  lapsing  into  heathenism, 
would  it  be  deemed  sufficient  to  ascertain  the  precise 
form  of  error  into  which  they  lapsed,  and  to  locate  the 
geographical  direction  from  which  it  reached  their  neigh- 
borhood? Would  not  the  necessity  be  recognized  of 
learning  what  essential  guards  about  those  Christian  fami- 
lies had  been  lacking  amid  their  heathen  surroundings? 
Why  then  should  it  be  concluded  satisfactory  to  account 

*  Sermons  Delivtred  on  Various  Occasions,  p.  no. 


104  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

for  the  low  state  of  the  Protestant  churches  of  Europe 
and  America  in  the  eighteenth  century,  by  an  enumera- 
tion of  their  temptations,  and  an  identifying  of  their 
tempters,  without  giving  chief  prominence  to  their  so 
general  neglect  of  the  church-school,  or  the  Sunday- 
school,  as  God's  appointed  agency  for  winning  and  train- 
ing the  young? 

God  has  chosen  to  give  power  to  his  Church  in  and 
through  the  means  and  measures  of  his  pointing  out. 
To  the  school  idea  he  has  assigned  a  foremost  place  in 
the  right  workings  of  the  Church  of  Christ  Whenever 
that  idea  is  lost  sight  of,  or  is  obscured,  the  Church  is  a 
loser  in  its  holding  power  and  in  its  power  of  progress. 
It  is  only  when  that  idea  is  kept  in  due  prominence  that 
the  Church  has  a  possibility  of  filling  its  place  and  of 
doing  its  proper  work.  That  that  idea  was  obscured  in 
the  Protestant  world,  during  the  latter  part  of  the  seven- 
teenth and  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  is 
a  fact  which  admits  of  no  dispute.  Even  in  England, 
where  the  state  of  things  was  better  than  in  some  other 
countries,  the  religious  teaching  of  the  young  was  sadly 
neglected.  Abbey  and  Overton,  the  English  Church  his- 
torians already  cited,  say  at  this  point :  "  In  the  latter 
part  of  the  seventeenth  and  through  the  earlier  years  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  we  find  earnest  Churchmen,  of  all 
opinions,  sorely  lamenting  the  comparative  disuse  of  the 
old  [and  still  enjoined]  custom  of  catechising  [of  the 
interlocutory  teaching  of  the  young]  on  Sunday  after- 
noons. Five  successive  archbishops  of  Canterbury — 
Sheldon,  Sancroft,  Tillotson,  Tenison,  and  Wake — how- 
ever widely  their  opinions  might  differ  on  some  points 
relating  to  the  edification  of  the  Church,  were  cordially 


ITS  MODERN  REVIVAL.  105 

agreed  in  this."1  And  as  to  another  prominent  religious 
training  agency  at  the  same  period,  these  writers  say: 
"  If  we  ask  what  was  the  state  of  the  Universities,  which 
ought  to  be  the  centres  of  light,  diffusing  itself  through- 
out the  whole  nation,  the  training-grounds  of  those  who 
are  to  be  the  trainers  of  their  fellow-men,  we  have  the 
evidence  of  such  different  kinds  of  men  as  Swift,  Defoe, 
Gray,  Gibbon,  Johnson,  John  Wesley,  Lord  Eldon,  and 
Lord  Chesterfield,  all  agreeing  on  this  point,  that  both 
[of]  the  great  Universities  were  neglectful  and  inefficient 
in  the  performance  of  their  proper  work."2 

"  For  more  than  sixty  years  after  the  death  of  [Queen] 
Anne  [17 14],"  says  Lecky,  "the  history  of  education  in 
England  is  almost  a  blank."3  Referring  to  the  latter  half 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  Lord  Mahon  says :  "  Through- 
out England  the  education  of  the  laboring  classes  was 
most  grievously  neglected;  the  supineness  of  the  clergy 
of  that  age  being  manifest  on  this  point  as  on  every 
other."4  And  by  this  neglect  of  God's  appointed  training 
agency,  as  a  means  of  holding  those  who  were  already 
within  the  fold  of  the  Church,  and  of  hopefully  reaching 
those  who  were  without,  the  decline  of  life  and  power  in 
the  Church,  as  the  controlling  force  in  the  community, 
was  assured — and  was  brought  about.  Only  God  knows 
what  would  have  been  the  result  to  the  Church  and  to 
the  world,  if  the  church  Bible -school  agency  had  not 
been  revived  and  made  newly  prominent  under  circum- 
stances which  led  to  its  extension  and  to  its  expansion  in 
a  measure  beyond  all  precedent 

1  The  Englifh  Church  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,  p.  469. 
*  Ibid.,  p.  303.        »  Hist.  o/Eng.,  VI..  276.        *  Hist,  of  Eng.,  VI I.,  33a. 


Io6  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

To  begin  with,  there  were  remarkable  revivals  of  re- 
ligion near  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  in 
connection  with  the  work  of  Zinzendorf  in  Germany,  oi 
Wesley  and  Whitefield  in  Great  Britain,  and  of  Edwards 
and  Whitefield  in  the  United  States.  But  these  revivals, 
and  the  work  of  these  great  men,  could,  in  the  very  nature 
of  things,  have  permanent  power  only  as  the  methods  and 
agencies  put  into  fresh  operation  by  them  corresponded 
to  God's  appointment,  and  were,  in  his  providence,  suited 
to  the  work  to  which  they  were  applied.  As  in  the  case 
of  Luther  and  Calvin  and  Knox,  and  again  of  Loyola  and 
Xavier,  Zinzendorf  and  Wesley  realized  that  no  revival 
could  be  permanent  in  its  results,  nor  could  any  reforma- 
tion be  an  abiding  one,  except  by  means  of  reaching  and 
systematically  training  the  young ;  and  it  was  in  the  light 
of  this  fundamental  truth  that  they  prosecuted  their  evan- 
gelizing and  upbuilding  work  most  successfully. 

Zinzendorf  and  his  co-workers  preached  directly  to  the 
children,  gathered  large  numbers  of  them  into  the  church- 
fold,1  and  at  the  same  time  arranged  for  the  personal 
training  of  the  converts  individually,  by  clustering  them 
in  small  classes  under  special  teachers.2    Wesley  followed 

1  In  1727  there  was  a  remarkable  revival  among  the  Moravian  children  at 
Bertholdsdorf  and  Herrnhut,  which  had  its  beginning  in  a  discourse  to  th* 
girls  by  Count  Zinzendorf.  (See  Cranz's  Hist,  of  the  Brethren,  p.  119  f.).  For 
evidence  of  Zinzendorf 's  interest  in  the  religious  training  of  children,  by  the 
church,  see,  also,  Spangenberg's  Life  of  Zinzendorf  ,  p.  85  f. 

2  In  an  address  delivered  July  2, 1747,  Count  Zinzendorf  mentioned  that  just 
twenty  years  before  then,  [that  is,  July  2,  1727,]  on  the  day  commemorative 
of  the  visit  of  Mary  to  Elisabeth,  the  idea  came  to  him  of  organizing  the  people 
of  his  charge  into  "bands  or  societies,"  or  small  classes;  and  he  added: 
"  These  were  established  throughout  the  whole  community  the  following 
week,  and  have  been  productive  of  such  blessed  effects,  that  I  believe  [that] 
without  such  an  institution  the  church  would  never  have  become  what  it  now 


ERSITY 


ITS  MODERN  REVIVAL.  107 


Zinzendorf  in  both  particulars.1  He  laid  great  stress  on 
the  work  among  children,  and  on  the  class  instruction  of 
converts.  "  Unless  ...  we  can  take  care  of  the  rising 
ge?ieratio?i}  the  present  revival  of  religion,"  he  said,  "  will 
be  res  unius  aetatis ;  it  will  last  only  the  age  of  a  man."2 

is.  The  societies,  called  bands,  consist  of  a  few  individuals  met  together  in 
the  name  of  Jesus,  amongst  whom  Jesus  is,  who  converse  together  in  a  par- 
ticularly child-like  manner  on  the  state  of  their  hearts,  and  conceal  nothing 
from  each  other,  but  have  wholly  committed  themselves  to  each  other  in  the 
Lord.  ...  In  each  of  them  a  brother  or  a  sister,  according  to  the  sex  [of  the 
band  or  class],  was  commissioned  to  take  particular  charge  of  the  rest.  When 
they  met  they  either  read  something  of  an  edifying  nature,  sang,  and  prayed, 
or  else  conversed  together."  It  was  about  this  time  that  Zinzendorf  also 
revived  the  primitive  "  love-feast  "  among  his  people.  (Spangenberg's  Life 
0/  Zinzendorf,  pp.  86-89.) 

1  One  of  Zinzendorf  s  helpers  was  Peter  Boehler,  born  at  Frankfort-on-the- 
Main,  in  1712.  He  was  made  a  bishop  at  Herrnhut  in  1748.  While  at  Lon- 
don, as  a  Moravian  worker,  early  in  1738,  he  became  acquainted  with  John 
Wesley,  and  seems  to  have  put  his  stamp  upon  him  permanently.  Tyerman 
records  that  Wesley  *'  was  induced  [by  Boehler]  to  become  a  member  of  the 
first  Moravian  society  in  Fetter  Lane  [London]."  The  rules  of  that  society, 
framed  "  in  obedience  to  the  command  of  God  by  St.  James,  and  by  the  advice 
of  Peter  Boehler,"  provided  that  the  members  "  should  be  divided  into  bands, 
of  not  fewer  than  five  nor  more  than  ten ;  and  that  some  one  in  each  band 
should  be  desired  to  interrogate  the  rest,  and  should  be  called  the  leader. 
Each  band  was  to  meet  twice  a  week."  The  details  of  the  plan  of  exercises,  and 
of  the  scope  of  management  of  these  bands,  would  seem  to  indicate,  beyond  a 
question,  the  origin  of  the  idea  of  the  subsequent  system  of  Methodist  class 
meetings  (see  Tyerman's  Life  and  Times  of  John  Wesley,  I.,  195  f.;  also 
Wesley's  Journal  for  May,  1738,  Works,!.).  In  the  summer  following  his  first 
connection  with  the  Moravian  society  in  London,  Wesley  visited  Zinzendorf 
at  Herrnhut.  In  his  journal  at  that  time  he  describes  the  methods  of  Mora- 
vian church  organization  and  discipline,  similar  to  those  which  Boehler  had 
disclosed  to  him.  This  system  impressed  Wesley  to  such  an  extent  that  he 
wrote  out  its  details  in  full  in  his  journal ;  and  the  future  showed  the  value 
which  he  attached  to  it.  (See  Wesley's  Journal  for  August,  1738,  and  for 
February  and  March,  1742  [  Works,  I.]  ;  also  Tyerman's  Life  of  Wesley,  I., 
377-381.446.463) 

•Tyerman's  Life  of  Wesley,  III.,  23.  See,  also.  Wesley's  Sermons:  Ser- 
mon 94,  on  Family  Religion  (  Works,  VII.,  73). 


108  THE  SUNDA  Y-SCHOOL  : 

And  in  that  statement  Wesley  touched  the  truth  of  truths 
concerning  God's  method  of  giving  permanent  power  to 
the  work  of  his  Church.  To  his  preachers,  Wesley  fol- 
lowed this  affirmation  with  the  injunction:  "Spend  an 
hour  a  week  with  the  children,  in  every  large  town, 
whether  you  like  it  or  not.  Talk  with  them  every  time 
you  see  any  at  home.  Pray  in  earnest  for  them." '  Lecky, 
in  his  careful  review  of  the  methods  and  influence  of  the 
Wesleyan  movement,  says:  "The  Methodists  appear  to 
have  preached  especially  to  children;"  and  he  cites  the 
words  of  Wesley  when  describing,  "  among  other  cases,  a 
remarkable  revival  among  children  at  Stockton- upon  - 
Tees,  in  1784:  'Is  not  this  a  new  thing  upon  the  earth? 
God  begins  his  work  in  children.  .  .  .  Thus  the  flame 
spreads  to  those  of  riper  years.'"2  Moreover,  from  the 
beginning  of  his  more  active  labors,  Wesley  insisted  that 
all  who  were  brought  under  his  instruction  should  be 
gathered  in  "  bands,"  or  "classes,"  for  their  personal  train- 
ing.3 So  far  the  Wesleyan  movement  included  important 
elements  of  the  Sunday-school  agency;  and  in  the  same 
measure  that  movement  had  a  possibility  of  continuance 
and  permanency. 

But  there  was  still  a  lack,  and  the  effect  of  it  was  obvi- 
ous. The  methods  of  the  Wesleyans,  like  those  of  the 
Moravians,  were  limited  to  those  bodies  of  Christians, 
even  while  the  influence  of  their  work  extended  far  beyond 
them.     Their  evangelizing  efforts  among  children  were 

1  Tyerman's  Life  of  Wesley,  III.,  23. 

2  Hist,  of  Eng.,  II.,  665.  For  accounts  of  Wesley's  work  among  children, 
see  his  Journal,  for  Aug.  19,  1776;  Dec.  2,  1778  ;  April  5,  April  27,  June  7, 
1782;  May  18,  June  8,  1784,  etc.  (  Works,  IV.). 

*  Tyerman's  Life  of  Wesley,  I.,  379. 


ITS  MODERN  REVIVAL.  109 

but  occasional,  as  visiting  preachers  had  opportunities  in 
that  direction.  And  the  training  of  converts  in  their 
bands,  or  classes,  was  mainly  in  the  sphere  of  Christian 
experience.  There  was  still  needed  a  revival  of  the  primi- 
tive church-school  agency,  to  be  made  use  of  alike  by 
every  branch  of  the  Church  of  Christ,  for  the  persistent 
and  systematic  teaching  of  children  and  of  the  child-like, 
in  the  "all  things"  of  the  Holy  Scriptures.  Unless  that 
agency  should  reappear,  the  Church  of  Christ  must  con- 
tinue crippled  for  its  divinely  directed  work,  and  the  best 
results  of  the  latest  revival,  like  those  of  former  days, 
must  be  confined  to  the  lifetime  of  its  chief  promoters. 
It  was  the  timely  meeting  of  that  lack  which  proved  a 
new  beginning  of  good  to  the  Protestant  Christian  world. 

It  was  in  the  city  of  Gloucester,  England,  in  July, 
1780,1  that  Robert  Raikes,  the  editor  and  proprietor  of 

1  It  is  a  singular  fact,  that,  for  more  than  three-quarters  of  a  century,  the 
beginning  of  Raikes's  work  was  understood  to  be  1781,  instead  of  1780.  The 
Jubilee,  or  half-century  celebration,  of  the  Raikes  movement,  was  in  1831. 
The  more  careful  histories  of  the  Sunday-school,  such  as  Pray 'sand  Watson's, 
were  positive  in  fixing  its  start  in  1781;  and  cyclopedias  and  modern  church 
histories,  generally,  accepted  this  as  the  correct  date.  Yet  the  Centenary  of 
Sunday-schools  was  observed  in  1880;  the  inscription  on  the  pedestal  of 
Raikes's  statue,  erected  at  that  time  in  London,  gives  1780  as  the  date  of  his 
first  Sunday-school;  and,  practically,  no  question  now  exists  that  this  is  cor- 
rect. Raikes's  letter  concerning  his  work,  published  in  the  Gentleman's 
Magazine  for  June,  1784,  says  that  it  was  "about  three  years  "  before  that 
writing  that  he  began  his  first  Sunday-school.  Here,  perhaps,  is  the  origin 
of  the  idea  that  the  beginning  was  in  1781.  But  that  letter  of  Raikes  is  dated 
"  November  25th,"  hence  must  have  been  written  as  early  as  1783.  More- 
over, the  date  of  the  beginning  of  the  Gloucester  Sunday-schools  is  given  as 
1780  on  the  monument  of  the  Rev.  Thomas  Stock,  a  co-worker  with  Raikes 
in  their  starting  (Pray 's  Hist,  of  Sunday-schools,  p.  137);  and  a  Bible  pre- 
sented, at  the  beginning  of  this  work,  to  Mr.  King,  in  whose  house  the  first 
Sunday-school  was  started  by  Raikes,  bore  in  it  the  date  of  "July,  1780." 
(See  Gregory's  Robert  Raikes,  p.  72.) 


1 10  THE  SUNDA  Y- SCHOOL : 

The  Gloucester  Journal,  who  had  already  interested  him- 
self in  philanthropic  efforts  at  prison  reform,  gathered  the 
poorer  children  of  a  manufacturing  quarter  of  that  city 
into  the  rooms  of  a  private  house  of  the  neighborhood,1  for 
their  Sunday  instruction  in  reading  and  in  the  elementary 
truths  of  religion.  "The  children  were  to  come  soon 
after  ten  in  the  morning,  and  stay  till  twelve ;  they  were 
then  to  go  home  and  stay  till  one ;  and  after  reading  a 
lesson  they  were  to  be  conducted  to  church.  After 
church  they  were  to  be  employed  in  repeating  the  cate- 
chism till  half-past  five,  and  then  to  be  dismissed,  with  an 
injunction  to  go  home  without  making  a  noise;  and  by 
no  means  to  play  in  the  street."2  Four  women  were 
employed  as  teachers  in  the  school,  at  the  rate  of  a  shil- 
ling a  day.3    And  this  was  the  beginning  of  the  modern 

,"  It  was  at  the  house  of  a  Mr.  King,  in  St.  Catherine  Street,  that  the  first 
Gloucester  Sunday-school  was  started,  in  the  month  of  July,  1780.  Mr.  King 
was  at  the  time  steward  to  Mr.  Pitt,  who  represented  Gloucester  in  Parliament 
for  some  years  "  (Gregory's  Robert  Raikes,  p.  72). 

2  A  letter  from  Robert  Raikes,  dated  June  5,  1784,  in  the  Appendix  to 
Turner's  Sunday  Schools  Recommended,  p.  41. 

•  Describing  his  conversation  with  a  woman  of  the  neighborhood,  where  he 
started  his  first  Sunday-school,  Raikes  says:  "  I  then  inquired  if  there  were 
any  decent,  well-disposed  women  in  the  neighborhood  who  kept  schools  for 
teaching  to  read.  I  presently  was  directed  to  four :  to  these  I  applied,  and 
made  an  agreement  with  them  to  receive  as  many  children  as  I  should  send 
them  upon  the  Sundays,  whom  they  were  to  instruct  in  reading  and  in  the 
Church  Catechism.  For  this  I  engaged  to  pay  them  each  a  shilling  for  their 
day's  employment.  The  women  seemed  pleased  with  the  proposal.  I  then 
waited  on  the  clergyman  before  mentioned  [the  Rev.  Thomas  Stock],  and 
imparted  to  him  my  plan ;  he  was  so  much  satisfied  with  the  idea,  that  he 
engaged  to  lend  his  assistance  by  going  round  to  the  schools  on  a  Sunday  after- 
noon, to  examine  the  progress  that  was  made,  and  to  enforce  order  and  deco- 
rum among  such  a  set  of  little  heathen"  (Raikes's  Letter  in  Gentleman's 
Magazine  for  June,  1784).  Gregory  {Robert  Raikes,  p.  72)  says  that,  "  prior 
to  the  establishment  of  the  school,  Mr.  Raikes  and  the  Rev.  T.  Stock  went  to 


ITS  MODERN  REVIVAL.  1 1 1 

Sunday-school  movement.  This  was  the  revival,  under 
new  auspices,  of  the  divinely  appointed  church  Bible- 
school.  This  was  the  starting-point  of  a  new  period  of 
life  and  hope  to  the  Church  of  Christ,  and,  through  the 
Church,  to  the  world. 

There  seems  to  have  been  absolutely  nothing  new  in 
the  Sunday-school  plans  of  Robert  Raikes.  Schools  of 
a  similar  character,  and  apparently  with  all  the  essential 
features  of  his  school,  were  organized  in  Upper  Egypt, 
and  in  Armenia,  and  elsewhere  in  the  East,  more  than 
fourteen  centuries  before  his  day.1  All  the  way  along 
the  intervening  centuries  there  had  been  repeated  revi- 
vals of  this  agency  of  evangelism  and  of  religious  instruc- 
tion, with  more  or  less  of  success.  The  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries  had  not  been  without  attempts  in  this 
direction,  in  England,  Ireland,  Scotland,  Wales,  and  the 
United  States.2     But  in  the  providence  of  God  the  times 

Mrs.  King's  house,  and  engaged  the  services  of  Mrs.  King  as  the  first  teacher, 
at  a  salary  of  is.  6d.  per  Sunday,  of  which  sum  Mr.  Raikes  contributed  a 
shilling  and  Mr.  Stock  sixpence."  It  is  possible,  therefore,  that  Mr.  Stock 
added  a  sixpence  to  Mr.  Raikes's  shilling  in  the  case  of  one  teacher.  Indeed, 
Mr.  Raikes  wrote  on  another  occasion :  "  The  stipend  to  the  teachers  here 
is  a  shilling  each  Sunday,  but  we  find  them  firing,  and  bestow  gratuities  as 
rewards  of  diligence,  which  may  make  it  worth  sixpence  more  "  (Raikes's 
Letter  to  Mrs.  Harris,  in  Pray's  Hist,  of  Sunday-schools,  p.  145). 

1  See  p.  62  f.,  ante. 

*  It  has  already  been  shown  (p.  74,  ante)  that  a  form  of  Sunday-schools 
was  inaugurated  by  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Church  of  Scotland,  in  1560, 
and  that  as  early  as  1603  a  similar  system  was  in  operation  in  the  Church  of 
England.  Yet  a  certain  curious  interest  attaches  to  the  record  of  sporadic 
instances  of  Sunday-school  work,  in  fields  where  that  work  was  not  systemati- 
cally and  generally  prosecuted,  after  its  post-Reformation  decline,  and  before 
its  revival  by  Robert  Raikes.  Therefore  it  is  that  the  following  instances  of 
such  work  may  properly  be  mentioned  just  here  ;  although  it  is  by  no  DMMM 
probable  that  they  stand  alone  in  the  history  of  such  undertakings  in  the 


112  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

were  now  ripe  for  a  revival  of  the  church-school  idea  in 
this  form,  and  for  its  progressive  prevalence  beyond  its 
extremest  limits  of  a  former  day. 

Mr.  Raikes  had  a  peculiar  advantage,  in  his  position 
as  the  editor  of  a  weekly  periodical,  with  its  opportunity 
of  enabling  him  to  make  widely  known  the  good  results 
of  his  new  enterprise.  Yet  it  was  not  until  his  experi- 
ment had  had  a  successful  trial  of  more  than  three  years 
that  he  made  an  announcement  of  it  in  his  periodical.1 
His  earliest  sketch  of  his  work,  thus  given  to  the  public, 
in  November,  1783,  (without,  however,  the  mention  of  his 
own  name  in  connection  with  it,)  seems  to  have  attracted 
the  attention  of  Colonel  Richard  Townley,  of  Lancashire, 
and  to  have  incited  him  to  a  desire  to  introduce  similar 

period  and  countries  covered  by  them.  Sunday-schools  are  known,  or  are 
claimed,  to  have  been  conducted  in  Bath,  England,  (by  the  Rev.  Joseph 
Alleine,)  in  1665-68;  in  Roxbury,  Massachusetts,  in  1674;  in  Norwich,  Con- 
necticut, in  1676;  in  Plymouth,  Massachusetts,  in  1680;  in  Newtown,  Long 
Island,  (by  the  Rev.  Morgan  Jones,)  in  1683 ;  in  England,  (by  Bishop 
Frampton,)  in  1693 ;  in  Berks  and  Montgomery  counties,  Pennsylvania,  (by 
the  Schwenkfelders,)  in  1734 ;  in  Ephrata,  Pennsylvania,  (by  Ludwig  Hocker,) 
in  1740;  in  Bethlehem,  Connecticut,  (by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Joseph  Bellamy,)  in 
1740;  in  Philadelphia,  Pennsylvania,  (by  Mrs.  Greening,)  in  1744;  in  Nor- 
ham,  Scotland,  (by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Morrison,)  in  1757;  in  Brechin,  Scotland, 
(by  the  Rev.  David  Blair,)  in  1760;  in  Catterick,  England,  (by  the  Rev. 
Theophilus  Lindsey,)  in  1763  ;  in  Columbia,  Connecticut,  (by  the  Rev.  Eleazer 
Wheelock,)  in  1763;  in  Bedale,  England,  (by  Miss  Harrison,)  in  1765;  in 
High  Wycombe,  England,  (by  Miss  Hannah  Ball,)  in  1769 ;  in  Doagh,  County 
Antrim,  Ireland,  (by  William  Gait,)  in  1770;  in  Bright,  County  Down,  Ire- 
land, (by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Kennedy,)  in  1774;  in  Little  Lever,  near  Bolton, 
England,  (by  James  Heys,)  in  1775 ;  in  Mansfield,  England,  (by  the  Rev. 
David  Simpson,)  in  1778 ;  also,  about  the  same  time,  in  Asbury,  England, 
(by  the  Rev.  Thomas  Stock) ;  and  in  Dursley,  England,  (by  William  King). 

1  In  a  letter  written  by  Mr.  Raikes,  in  1787,  to  Mrs.  Harris,  of  Chelsea,  it 
is  said  :  "  My  eldest  boy  was  born  the  very  day  I  made  public  to  the  world 
the  scheme  of  Sunday-schools,  in  my  paper  of  November  3d,  1783."  See 
Pray's  Hist,  of  Sunday-schools,  p.  147. 


ITS  MODERN  RE  VIVAL.  1 1 3 

schools  into  the  large  manufacturing  counties  of  York  and 
Lancaster.  The  latter,  therefore,  applied  to  the  mayor  of 
Gloucester,  and  through  the  mayor  to  Mr.  Raikes,  for 
added  information  on  the  subject.  A  letter  from  Mr. 
Raikes,  dated  November  25,  in  response  to  this  inquiry, 
was  published  **  in  the  Leeds  and  Manchester  papers  of 
December,  1783,  and  January,  1784;"1  and  in  June,  1784, 
it  was  given  in  full  in  the  pages  of  the  influential  Gentle- 
man's Magazine,  of  London.  Another  descriptive  letter 
by  Mr.  Raikes,  concerning  his  Sunday-schools,  was  pub- 
lished, a  little  later,  in  the  Arminian  Magazine,  edited  by 
John  Wesley.  Yet  again  he  spoke  through  the  pages  of 
the  European  Magazine.2  These  accounts  of  the  origin 
and  progress  of  Mr.  Raikes's  work  were  reproduced  in 
various  forms  in  the  metropolitan  and  provincial  press  of 
Great  Britain,  and  did  much  to  call  public  attention  to  the 
new  undertaking  in  its  importance  and  its  possibilities. 
It  is  said,  indeed,  that  "  by  this  means  the  knowledge 
and  nature  of  Sunday-schools  were  'diffused  with  the 
rapidity  of  lightning  throughout  the  world."'3 

While  this  Sunday-school  movement  began  within  the 
pale  of  the  Church  of  England,  it  was  at  first  purely  an 
individual,  rather  than  an  ecclesiastical,  movement;  as 
indeed  wellnigh  all  great  movements  of  progress  or  of 
reform  have  been,  from  the  days  of  John  the  Baptist  to 
those  of  Luther,  and  of  Loyola,  and  of  Knox,  and  of 


J  These  facts  are  given  in  the  Appendix  to  Turner's  Sunday  Schools  Recom- 
mended. 

*  See  Gregory's  Robert  Raikes,  pp.  59,  85.  Gregory  says  that  this  letter 
was  dated  June  5,  1785;  but  Turner,  in  his  Sunday  Schools  Recommended 
(p.  40),  as  already  noted  (at  p.  no,  ante),  gives  its  date  as  June  5,  1784. 

•  Pray's  Hist.  0/ Sunday-schools,  p.  152. 
8 


114  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

Wesley.  With  the  approval  of  some  church  dignitaries, 
and  against  the  opposition  of  others,1  it  extended  itself  into 
the  field  of  all  religious  denominations  throughout  the 
United  Kingdom,  and  afterwards  over  the  ocean.  Bishop 
Porteus,  then  of  the  see  of  Chester,  and  later  of  London, 
was  its  early  and  earnest  advocate.  The  bishops  of  Nor- 
wich, Salisbury,  and  Llandaff,  and  the  Dean  of  Canterbury, 
followed  him  in  commending  it.  The  earls  of  Ducie  and 
of  Salisbury  gave  it  approval.  John  Newton,  William 
Cowper,  Thomas  Scott,  and  Mrs.  Trimmer,  were  hearty 
in  its  support.  William  Fox  and  Jonas  Hanway  secured 
the  organization  of  a  general  Sunday-school  society,  with 
its  centre  at  London.  Ladies  of  fashion  undertook  the 
work  of  Sunday-school  teaching.2  Then  the  Queen  herself 
gave  fresh  impetus  to  the  new  movement  by  adding  to  it 

1  Speaking  of  the  early  days  of  the  Sunday-school  movement,  Sir  Charles 
Reed  said,  at  the  Raikes  Centenary,  in  London,  in  June,  1880:  "When 
Sunday-schools  were  first  instituted  in  this  country  they  were  fiercely  attacked. 
It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  they  had  an  easy  progress.  They  were  attacked 
by  prelates  in  the  pulpit.  The  Bishop  of  Rochester  notably  denounced  it 
[the  Sunday-school  movement],  and  urged  the  clergy  not  to  support  it ;  and 
the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  was  the  first  man  in  that  day  to  call  the  bishops 
together  to  consider  whether  something  could  not  be  done  to  stop  this  great 
enterprise."  (See  The  Sunday  School  Chronicle,  for  July  1,  1880,  p.  354.) 
Later,  the  Presbyterians  of  Scotland,  and  the  Congregationalists  of  New 
England,  were  represented  among  the  opponents  of  the  Sunday-school  as  it 
battled  its  way  into  deserved  favor. 

2  For  detailed  proofs  of  the  facts  here  referred  to,  see,  among  other  works, 
Lloyd's  Sketch  of  the  Life  of  Robert  Raikes,  and  of  the  History  of  Sunday 
Schools;  Pray's  History  of  Sunday-schools  (a  book  which  has  proved  a  the- 
saurus of  facts  and  suggestions  for  subsequent  writers  on  both  sides  of  the 
ocean) ;  Watson's  The  First  Fifty  Years  of  the  Sunday-school ;  Watson's 
The  Sunday-school  Union  :  Its  History  and  Work;  Gregory's  Robert  Raikes; 
Paxton  Hood's  The  Day,  the  Book  and  the  Teacher;  Power's  Rise  and  Prog- 
ress of  Sunday-schools  ;  and  the  Centenary  numbers  of  The  Sunday  School 
Chronicle,  July,  1880. 


ITS  MODERN  RE  VIVAL.  1 1 5 

the  stamp  of  royal  favor.  Sending  for  Robert  Raikes, 
she  learned  from  his  own  lips  the  story  of  his  work  and 
its  progress ;  and,  as  he  reports  it,  "  Her  Majesty  most 
graciously  said  that  she  envied  those  who  had  the  power 
of  doing  good  by  thus  personally  promoting  the  welfare  of 
society,  in  giving  instruction  and  morality  to  the  general 
mass  of  the  common  people;  a  pleasure  from  which,  by 
her  situation,  she  was  debarred." l  And  so  Sunday-school 
teaching  came  to  be  not  only  reputable  but  fashionable 
among  the  better  classes  of  the  English  people ;  and  this 
in  itself  was  a  means  of  good  to  those  better  classes,  apart 
even  from  any  good  which  came  from  it  to  those  whom 
they  taught.  Thus  it  was  that  there  was  a  beginning  of 
better  days  to  the  English-speaking  Christian  world 
through  the  re-introduction  into  church  activities  of  the 
divinely  appointed  Bible-school  agency. 

It  has  been  so  common  to  ascribe  all  the  quickening  of 
interest  in  religious  and  philanthropic  enterprises,  which 
characterizes  the  closing  years  of  the  last  century  and  the 
opening  years  of  this,  to  the  evangelical  revival  and  the 
Methodist  movement  growing  out  of  it,  that  it  may  be 
well  to  consider  how  little  real  progress  had  been  made 
in  the  more  than  fifty  years  of  revived  Christian  life  in 
England  which  preceded  the  new  beginning  of  the  Sun- 
day-school, in  comparison  with  the  progress  made  in  the 
twenty  years,  or  even  in  the  ten,  which  immediately  fol- 
lowed that.  It  was  just  after  Raikes  had  started  his  first 
Sunday-school,  that  John  Wesley  published  his  "  Estimate 
of  the  Manners  of  the  Present  Time,"  in  which  he  said  of 
England  generally:    "A  total  ignorance  of  God  is  almost 

1  Raikes's  letter  to  the  Rev.  Bowen  Thickens,  cited  in  Gregory's  Robert 
Raikes,  p.  95. 


Il6  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

universal  among  us.  The  exceptions  are  exceeding  few, 
whether  among  the  learned  or  unlearned.  High  and  low, 
cobblers,  tinkers,  hackney  coachmen,  men  and  maid  ser- 
vants, soldiers,  sailors,  tradesmen  of  all  ranks,  lawyers, 
physicians,  gentlemen,  lords,  are  as  ignorant  of  the  Creator 
of  the  world  as  Mahometans  or  pagans."1  A  little  later 
he  testified  again :  u  There  is  not,  on  the  face  of  the  earth, 
another  nation  (at  least,  that  we  ever  heard  of)  so  per- 
fectly dissipated  and  ungodly  [as  England] ;  not  only  so 
totally  'without  God  in  the  world,'  but  so  openly  setting 
him  at  defiance.  There  never  was  an  age,  that  we  read  of 
in  history,  since  Julius  Caesar,  since  Noah,  since  Adam, 
wherein  dissipation  and  ungodliness  did  so  generally  pre- 
vail, both  among  high  and  low,  rich  and  poor."2  With 
all  fair  qualifyings  of  these  extreme  statements  of  Mr. 
Wesley,  it  is  evident  that  there  was  much  to  be  done  in 
the  way  of  bringing  the  community  to  a  good  measure 
of  religious  life  and  of  common  morality,  at  the  time 
when  the  Sunday-school  element  became  a  factor  in  refor- 
matory agencies,  after  more  than  fifty  years  of  the  evan- 
gelical revival  of  the  eighteenth  century.3 

Lord  Mahon  presents  a  very  dark  picture  of  English 
social  life  at  the  time  of  which  Mr.  Wesley  here  speaks, 
and  he  points  to  the  Sunday-school  beginning  as  marking 
a  new  era  of  national  reform.4  Green,  speaking  of  the 
days  which  followed  the  close  of  the  American  Revolu- 
tion, just  after  the  beginning  of  Raikes's  work,  says:  "It 
was  then  [not  before,  but  theti\  that  the  moral,  the  philan- 
thropic, the  religious  ideas  which  have  moulded  English 

»  Works,  XI.,  152.  2  Ibid.,  VI.,  424. 

3  See  Wesley's  Sermons :  Sermon  94,  §  3  (  Works,  VII.,  77). 

*  Hist.  ofEng.,  VII.,  333  f. 


ITS  MODERN  RE  VIVAL.  1 1 7 

society  into  its  present  shape,  first  broke  the  spiritual 
torpor  of  the  eighteenth  century."1  And  again  Green 
says  specifically:  "The  Sunday-schools  established  by 
Mr.  Raikes  of  Gloucester  .  .  .  were  the  beginning  of 
popular  education  " — [in  England].2  Lecky,  also,  refers  to 
"the  establishment  of  Sunday-schools"  as  "an  important 
step"  in  the  line  of  "a  revived  interest  in  [popular]  edu- 
cation."3 As  showing  the  national  and  social  prominence 
which  was  quickly  gained  by  the  Sunday-school  system  as 
a  factor  in  the  forces  of  Christian  civilization,  it  is  a  note- 
worthy fact  that  Adam  Smith,  with  his  clear  perception  of 
the  needs  and  the  hope  of  society  as  such,  declared  of  this 

1  Hist,  of  the  English  People,  IV.,  372.  *  Ibid.,  IV.,  273  f. 

8  Hist,  of  Eng.,  VI.,  277.  At  a  centenary  celebration  under  the  auspices 
of  the  Church  of  England  Sunday  School  Institute,  in  London,  in  July,  1880, 
the  Rev.  J.  F.  Kitto,  in  his  formal  address  from  the  Institute,  to  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury,  said  on  this  point:  "  It  is  very  difficult  for  us  in  this 
day  accurately  to  estimate  the  effect  which  has  been  produced  upon  our 
nation  by  the  attention  which  was  so  forcibly  directed  at  that  time  [in  1780] 
to  the  necessity  of  the  education  of  the  young.  We  believe  that  it  is  scarcely 
too  much  to  say  that  the  system  of  national  elementary  education  which  has 
been  called  into  existence  during  the  last  hundred  years  owes  its  origin  in 
great  measure  to  the  persevering  efforts  of  those  who  were  instrumental  in 
the  foundation  of  Sunday-schools.  .  .  .  One  hundred  years  ago  it  was  a  rare 
thing  for  the  child  of  a  laboring  man  to  be  able  even  to  read,  but  to-day  we 
can  point  to  the  gratifying  fact  that,  amongst  all  the  20,000  scholars  who  are 
assembled  here  to-day,  by  Your  Grace's  invitation,  there  is  probably  not  one 
who  is  in  a  similar  condition  of  ignorance.  Nor  is  this  the  only  or  the  chief 
result  of  the  formation  of  Sunday-schools.  The  seed  of  Christian  faith  and 
Christian  enterprise  which  was  sown  by  Robert  Raikes  and  his  associates  has 
now  borne  fruit  in  almost  every  parish  in  our  land,  and  its  influence  has 
spread  far  beyond  the  confines  of  our  own  country,  or  the  limits  of  our  own 
Church;  so  that  wherever  our  Christianity  extends,  the  importance  of  the 
Sunday-school  is  recognized  as  the  nursery  and  training-school  of  the  church ; 
and  the  zeal  and  activity  of  thousands  of  voluntary  teachers  have  been  en- 
listed in  its  behalf  (  Thirty-seventh  Annual  Report  of  the  Church  of  England 
Sunday  School  Institute,  1880-81,  p.  47  f.). 


Il8  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

agency  that  "  no  plan  has  promised  to  effect  a  change  of 
manners,  with  equal  ease  and  simplicity,  since  the  days 
of  the  apostles  " l — when,  in  fact,  its  prototype  was  in  its 
pristine  prominence.  And  the  pessimistic  Malthus  was 
moved,  about  the  same  time,  to  utter  a  warning  against 
the  nation's  leaving  the  entire  education  of  the  common 
people  to  the  Sunday-schools.2 

John  Wesley  recognized  the  potency  of  the  new  Sun- 
day-school agency,  and  he  immediately  incorporated  it 
into  the  policy  of  his  great  undertaking.  To  this  fact  the 
Methodist  Church  organization  owes  a  large  measure  of  its 
success,  if  indeed  it  is  not  indebted  to  it  for  its  continu- 
ance as  well  as  for  its  steady  growth.  "  I  verily  think," 
wrote  Wesley,  "these  Sunday-schools  are  one  of  the 
noblest  specimens  of  charity  which  have  been  set  on  foot 
in  England  since  the  time  of  William  the  Conqueror."  3 
Again  he  wrote  to  his  brother  Charles :  "  I  am  glad  you 
have  set  up  Sunday-schools.  ...  It  is  one  of  the  noblest 
institutions  which  has  been  seen  in  Europe  for  some  cen- 
turies, and  will  increase  more  and  more,  provided  the 
teachers  and  inspectors  do  their  duty." 4  And  well  he 
might  think  thus.  About  the  time  of  the  opening  of 
Raikes's  first  Sunday-school,  more  than  fifty  years  from 
the  beginning  of  the  great  revival,  the  aggregate  mem- 
bership of  the  Methodist  communion,  all  the  world  over, 
was  a  little  more  than  fifty  thousand.5  Within  four  years 
from  the  public  announcement  by  Raikes  of  the  begin- 
ning of  his  work  in  Gloucester,  the  Sunday-schools  of  the 

1  Cited  in  a  letter  of  Robert  Raikes  to  William  Fox,  in  Lloyd's  Sketch  of 
Robert  Raikes,  p.  55.  2  See  Lecky's  Hist,  of  Eng.,  VI.,  278. 

s  Tyerman's  Life  of  Wesley,  III.,  522.  *  Ibid.,  III.,  604. 

5  Ibid.,  III.,  620. 


ITS  MODERN  iRE  VIVAL.  1 1 9 

United  Kingdom  had  a  membership  of  about  a  quarter  of 
a  million;1  and  from  that  time  onward  the  progress  of  the 
Methodists,  as  of  wellnigh  every  other  body  of  Protestant 
Christians,  was  accelerated  beyond  all  precedent. 

At  first  the  Sunday-school  had  paid  teachers,  and  its  in- 
struction was  mainly  limited  to  lessons  in  reading,  and  in 
the  Church  of  England  Catechism.  Afterward  it  secured 
voluntary  teachers,2  and  its  lessons  included  the  memo- 
rizing of  Bible  verses.  Gradually  its  plans  and  methods 
were  expanded,  until  they  comprised  the  systematic  study 
of  the  Bible  in  limited  lessons,  week  by  week,  with  a 
classification  of  scholars  in  accordance  with  their  ages 
and  attainments.  And  with  this  progress  in  the  character 
of  the  school  itself,  there  was  a  corresponding  progress 
in  its  influence  in  the  direction  of  securing  new  agencies 
for  the  extension  of  Christian  knowledge. 

That  the  Sunday-school  was  not  only  the  beginning 
of  the  English  system  of  public  school  education,  but  that 
step  by  step  that  system  was  prompted  and  promoted  by 
the  success  of  Sunday-school  teaching,  is  evident  by  the 
records  of  history.3  Penny  postage  in  Great  Britain,  with 
all  that  it  has  done  for  the  diffusion  of  intelligence  in  that 
realm,  is  shown  to  have  been  specifically  urged  and  advo- 
cated with  a  view  to  its  bearing  on  the  newly  extended 

1  Sec  Raikes's  letter  to  Mrs.  Harris,  in  Pray's  Hist,  of  Sunday-schools,  p.  147. 

'  It  has  been  generally  understood  that  the  beginning  of  voluntary  teaching 
was  in  Bolton,  England,  in  1785;  but  at  the  Raikcs  Centenary  in  London,  in 
1880,  Sir  Charles  Reed  claimed  this  honor  for  Oldham,  England.  He  said: 
"  In  Oldham  the  first  voluntary  teacher  was  found  who  declined  to  receive 
money,  and  undertook  the  charge  of  classes  in  schools  for  nothing"  {The 
Sun  Jay  School  Chronicle,  for  July  1,  1880,  p.  354). 

•See  Watson's  The  First  Fifty  Years  of  the  Sunday-school,  pp.  25-40; 
107-1:2;  118-125. 


120  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

correspondence  between  teachers  and  scholars  in  the 
Sunday-schools,  and  between  those  who  had  been  taught 
to  read  in  the  Sunday-school.1  The  British  and  Foreign 
Bible  Society — first  of  the  societies  of  that  character, 
which  in  the  aggregate  have  now  sent  out  into  the  world 
more  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  millions  of  Bibles  and 
Testaments,  in  at  least  two  hundred  and  eighty  languages 
and  dialects — was  immediately  the  result  of  an  effort  to 
provide  Bibles  and  Testaments  for  those  who  had  learned 
in  the  Sunday-school  to  use  them,  and  to  wish  for  them.2 
The  Religious  Tract  Society,  of  London,  was  likewise 
started  in  order  to  furnish  good  reading  to  those  who, 
through  the  Sunday-school,  had  become  interested  in 
good  reading.3  It  need  hardly  be  added  that  the  new 
popular  interest  in  the  religious  training  of  the  young 
and  the  ignorant  in  our  home  communities,  and  the  new 
appreciation  of  the  vital  truths  of  Christianity  through 
personal  Bible-study,  were  a  cause  of  that  larger  interest 
in  the  world's  religious  needs  which  led  to  the  new  foreign 
missionary  movement  for  the  evangelizing  of  the  world, 
which,  in  fact,  began  with  the  organization  of  the  London 
Missionary  Society  in  1795,  and  of  the  Church  Missionary 
Society  in  1799 — less  than  twenty  years  after  the  begin- 
ning of  Raikes's  Sunday-school  work.4 

In  short,  it  is  evident  that  the  great  religious  decline 
of  the  eighteenth  century  was  consequent  on  a  lack  of 
the  divinely  designated  church -school  agency  for  the 
winning  and  training  of  the  young ;  and  that  the  great 

1  See  The  [London]  Sunday-school  Union  :  Its  History  and  Work,  p.  128. 

t  See  Watson's  The  First  Fifty  Years  of  the  Sunday-school,  pp.  64-68. 

*  See  The  Jubilee  Memorial  of  the  Religious  Tract  Society,  p.  11  f. 

*  See  Lecky's  Hist,  of  Eng.,  VI.,  275. 


ITS  MODERN  RE  VIVAL.  1 2 1 

religious  advance  of  the  nineteenth  century  is  consequent 
upon  a  revival  and  expansion  of  that  agency,  with  its 
legitimate  influence  and  outcome.  To  the  reintroduction 
of  that  feature  into  the  Protestant  Church  polity  we  owe, 
under  God,  the  chief  measure  of  whatever,  in  our  religious 
life  and  methods  of  work,  make  and  mark  this  century — 
as  superior  to  the  centuries  which  it  follows. 

A  recent  tribute  to  the  vastness  of  the  work  wrought 
through  the  Sunday-school  in  Great  Britain,  rendered 
by  so  competent  and  impartial  an  observer  as  Mr.  John 
Bright,  is  worthy  of  notice  just  here.  In  a  public  address, 
only  a  few  months  ago,  Mr.  Bright  said:  "In  my  mind, 
the  Sunday-schools  have  been  the  foundation  of  much  of 
what  is  good  amongst  the  millions  of  our  people.  I  my- 
self am  of  opinion  that — I  will  not  say  no  attempt  has 
been  made,  but — no  attempt  has  been  at  all  successful  to 
show  the  enoi  mous  gain  which  our  people  have  received 
from  the  institution  of  Sunday-schools,  and  from  the  zeal 
and  continuity  by  which  they  have  been  supported.  .  .  . 
I  believe  that  there  is  no  field  of  labor,  no  field  of  Chris- 
tian benevolence,  which  has  yielded  a  greater  harvest  to 
our  national  interests  and  national  character  than  the  great 
institution  of  Sunday-schools."1  And  in  this  estimate  of 
this  evangelizing  and  educating  agency,  Mr.  John  Bright 
but  echoes  back,  as  the  verdict  of  history,  the  careful 
measure  of  its  power  which  was  given  by  Mr.  Adam 
Smith,  a  century  ago,  as  an  utterance  of  prophecy. 

And  now,  instead  of  pursuing  the  historical  course  of 
religious  progress  in  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  where  the 
Sunday-school  in  its  revived  form  first  had  prominence, 

1  See  The  Church  Sunday  School  Magazine,  for  July,  1887,  p.  57a  t 


1 22  THE  SUNDA  Y- SCHOOL  : 

it  will,  perhaps,  be  better  to  look  at  the  influence  of  the 
modern  Sunday-school  movement  here  in  America,  as 
illustrative  of  the  share  which  that  movement  has  con- 
tributed to  the  religious  progress  of  this  century  both 
here  and  abroad.  The  conditions  of  American  life  tend, 
in  fact,  to  bring  into  clearer  exhibit  the  relative  power  of 
the  Sunday-school  as  the  agency  of  agencies  in  the  pro- 
motion of  this  progress. 

America  has  been  practically  saved  to  Christianity  and 
the  religion  of  the  Bible  by  the  Sunday-school.  No 
country  has  ever  been  held  permanently  to  that  religion 
in  its  perennial  vitality,  without  the  aid  of  the  Sunday- 
school  or  its  substantial  equivalent.  And  no  country 
was  ever  more  difficult  of  such  holding,  or  was  more 
obviously  dependent  on  this  means  of  its  holding,  than 
America.  At  the  time  when  the  Sunday-school  was  intro- 
duced as  a  practical  power  in  the  American  community, 
unbelief  and  error  were  sweeping  away  the  barriers  of 
sound  religious  conviction  in  the  older  portions  of  our 
country ;  while  an  incoming  flood  of  godless  immigration 
was  threatening  to  ingulf  hopelessly  all  vestiges  of  Chris- 
tianity as  a  vitalizing  force  in  the  newer  communities 
of  our  extending  border  population.  The  new  agency 
practically  stayed  the  progress  of  error  and  unbelief,  and 
rescued  the  children  alike  of  those  who  had  lapsed  from 
the  faith,  and  those  who  had  never  had  faith.1 

It  is  difficult  to  realize  at  this  distance  of  time  the  change 

1  For  the  credit  of  introducing  the  modern  Sunday-school  into  the  United 
States,  there  are  many  claimants.  It  would  seem  that  in  several  places,  on 
this  side  of  the  ocean,  a  Sunday-school  which  was  started  within  a  few  years 
after  Raikes's  beginning  in  Gloucester,  was  continued  for  a  time,  and  then 
given  up,  without  leaving  an  immediate  successor.  Thus  a  Sunday-school  was 
organized,  under  the  direction  of  Bishop  Asbury,  at  the  house  of  Mr.  Thomas 


ITS  MODERN  REVIVAL.  123 

which  the  Sunday-school  quickly  wrought  in  America,  in 
the  prevailing  sentiment  of  parents,  teachers,  and  pastors, 
concerning  the  religious  needs  and  the  religious  capabili- 
ties of  children,  as  objects  of  church  effort  and  of  church 
care;  and  the  advance  which  was  speedily  made  in  popu- 
lar Bible  knowledge  in  the  community  generally.  A  help 
to  the  understanding  of  the  case,  so  far,  may  be  found  in 
the  expressions  of  joy  over  this  change  on  the  part  of 
those  who  were  personal  observers  of  it. 

In  1 8 14,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Lyman  Beecher  preached  and 

Crenshaw,  in  Hanover  County,  Virginia,  in  1786;  yet  but  little  is  known  of  it 
save  its  beginning.  A  minute  in  favor  of  organizing  Sunday-schools  was 
adopted  by  the  Methodist  Conference  in  Charleston,  South  Carolina,  in 
February,  1790;  yet  no  record  is  found  of  Sunday-schools  organized  in  con- 
sequence of  this  minute.  In  December,  1790,  a  meeting  was  called  in  Phila- 
delphia to  consider  the  importance  of  this  work;  and  early  in  January,  1791, 
the  First-Day  or  Sunday  School  Society  was  formed,  for  the  purpose  of 
securing  religious  instruction  to  poor  children  on  Sunday.  This  society  has 
continued  in  operation  to  the  present  day  ;  yet  its  schools,  like  those  of  Robert 
Raikes,  had  paid  teachers  during  the  earlier  years  of  its  operation.  In  1791 
a  Sunday-school  was  started  in  Boston  ;  in  1793  one  was  started  in  New  York 
City,  by  Katy  Ferguson,  a  colored  woman;  in  1794  one  was  started  in  Pat- 
erson,  New  Jersey;  in  1797  Samuel  Slater  secured  the  organization  of  one 
in  Pawtucket,  Rhode  Island;  in  1800  one  was  started  in  Pittsburgh,  Penn- 
sylvania. In  1803  a  Sunday-school  was  gathered  by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Divie 
Bethune,  in  New  York  City ;  and  subsequently  other  schools  were  begun  by 
them.  Mrs.  Bethune  was  a  daughter  of  Mrs.  Isabella  Graham.  Mr.  Bethune 
had  seen  something  of  Raikes's  work  in  England,  and  the  New  York  school 
was  started  in  imitation  of  that.  In  the  same  year  with  this  beginning  in 
New  York,  a  Sunday-school  was  begun  in  Portsmouth,  New  Hampshire ; 
the  year  following,  one  was  started  in  Baltimore,  Maryland.  In  1809  a  sys- 
tematic Sunday-school  movement  was  organized  in  Pittsburgh,  Pennsylvania. 
The  Rev.  Robert  May,  from  London,  gave  a  new  start  to  Sunday-schools,  in 
Philadelphia,  in  1811,  which  proved  a  beginning  of  permanent  progress.  A 
local  union  for  Sunday-school  work  was  organized  in  New  York  in  1816; 
another  in  Boston  the  same  year;  and  another  in  Philadelphia  in  1817. 
These  societies  became  the  nucleus  of  The  American  Sunday  School  Union,  a 
national  society,  organized  in  1824. 


124  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

published  his  soon  famous  sermon  on  the  Waste  Places 
of  New  England,1  in  which  he  drew  a  gloomy  picture  of 
the  religious  destitution  in  the  field  of  his  moral  out- 
look; while  at  the  same  time  he  outlined  the  possibilities 
of  good  to  the  community  through  yet  unattempted  en- 
deavors at  systematic  religious  instruction  by  the  Church 
in  the  homes  of  church-members  and  beyond.  Fourteen 
years  after  this  (in  1828)  Dr.  Beecher  republished  that 
sermon;  and  he  added  to  it  this  note,  concerning  his  ideal 
plans  of  reform  in  the  direction  of  the  church  instruction 
of  children:  "Since  this  was  written,  the  system  of  Sab- 
bath-schools has  more  than  realized  all  that  at  the  time 
[of  the  sermon  writing]  had  been  asked  or  thought"2 
A  year  later  than  this  testimony  by  Dr.  Beecher,  Presi- 
dent Francis  Wayland,  in  a  sermon  before  the  American 
Sunday  School  Union,  expressed  his  wonder  over  the 
progress  in  the  understanding  of  children,  as  well  as  in 
their  instruction,  within  the  period  of  a  single  decade. 
"Who  would  have  supposed,"  he  said,  "that  the  memory, 
the  judgment,  the  understanding,  and  the  conscience,  of  so 
young  a  child  [as  was  then  under  infant-school  instruc- 
tion] were  already  so  perfectly  formed  and  so  susceptible 
of  improvement?"  "And  if  I  be  not  much  mistaken," 
he  added,  "the  instruction  now  given  to  infants,  in  these 
invaluable  nurseries  [the  infant-schools],  is  more  philo- 
sophical, and  does  more  toward  establishing  correct  intel- 

1  Although  the  sermon  had  immediate  reference  to  Connecticut,  Dr.  Beecher 
said  that  his  remarks  concerning  that  state  were,  "with  slight  modification, 
applicable  to  New  England  generally  ;  "  and  it  will  hardly  be  questioned  that. 
in  that  day,  the  average  moral  standard  in  New  England  was  at  least  up  to 
that  of  the  country  elsewhere. 

2  Sermons  Delivered  on  Various  Occasions,  p.  128. 


ITS  MODERN  REVIVAL.  1 25 

lectual  and  moral  habits,  than  was  attainable,  when  T  was 
a  boy,  by  children  of  twelve  or  fourteen  years  of  age,  in 
grammar  schools  of  no  contemptible  estimation."1 

In  similar  thought,  the  Rev.  Dr.  E.  N.  Kirk,  who 
was  born  in  1802,  thanked  God,  in  his  maturer  life,  that 
the  dark  days  of  his  childhood  were  "passed,  passed  for- 
ever," those  days  "when  indoctritiation  and  restraint  were 
the  highest  aims  of  parents,  preachers,  and  teachers,  and 
[when]  amusement  [was]  the  chief  aim  of  authors,  who 
wrote  for  children!"2  while  the  Church  of  Christ  seemed 
to  have  no  faith  in  the  possibility  of  an  intelligent  Chris- 
tian life  by  a  child  as  a  child.  As  showing  that  these 
men  did  not  misrepresent  the  ignorance  of  the  child- 
nature  which  prevailed  among  Christians  of  the  age 
before  Sunday-schools,  it  may  be  mentioned  that  good 
Dr.  Doddridge,  who  was  foremost  in  his  time  as  a  worker 
in  behalf  of  children,  coolly  said  in  a  published  sermon, 
with  reference  to  a  child  of,  say,  five  years  old:  "Without 
a  miracle,  it  cannot  be  expected  that  much  of  the  Chris- 
tian scheme  should  be  understood  by  these  little  creatures, 
in  the  first  dawning  of  reason,  though  a  few  evangelical 
phrases  may  be  taught  [to  them],  and  sometimes,  by  a 
happy  kind  of  accident,  may  be  rightly  applied."3  And 
here  in  America,  as  late  as  the  years  1828-30,  one  of  the 
subjects  of  serious  discussion  in  our  religious  magazines 
was,  "  Can  Children  Reason  ?  "  In  support  of  the  affirma- 
tive of  this  question,  there  were  proffered  the  answers 

1  Sermon  on  Encouragements  to  Religious  Effort  (1830),  p.  12. 

*  Address  to  the  Convention  of  Sunday-school  Teachers,  Pittsfield,  June  24, 
•863,  p.  6. 

•Sermon  on  Submission  to  Divine  Providence  in  the  Death  of  Children 
[1736].    (Sermons  and  Religious  Tracts,  I.,  89.) 


126  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

to  questions  given  by  children  of  nine,  ten,  and  twelve 
years  old,  which  went  to  show  "  that  children  are  capable 
of  thinking  and  reasoning  for  themselves."1 

The  Rev.  Albert  Barnes,  in  1850,  looked  back  upon 
the  dearth  of  religious  reading  for  children  in  the  days 
of  his  boyhood  (he  was  born  at  the  close  of  last  century) 
in  contrast  with  the  extensive  literature  for  childhood 
provided  by  and  for  the  Sunday-school  in  its  first  half- 
century  of  progress.  All  that  he  could  have  obtained 
for  his  boyhood's  reading,  had  he  had  limitless  means  at 
his  command,  "would,"  he  said,  "have  required  little 
more  than  Franklin  paid  for  his  whistle ; "  but  now  he 
found  available  such  treasures  in  that  line  as  had  no 
parallel  in  all  history  in  the  rapidity  of  their  invaluable 
accumulating.2  And  even  before  this  review  of  the  half- 
century's  progress  by  Mr.  Barnes,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Isaac 
Ferris,  afterwards  Chancellor  of  the  University  of  the  City 
of  New  York,  declared,  in  1834,  that  the  candidates  for  the 
theological  seminary  coming  from  the  instructions  of  the 
Sunday-school  at  that  time,  had  "knowledge,  on  several 
branches,  in  advance  of  the  instruction  of  the  seminary 
itself;"  because  of  the  new  helps  available  in  the  Sunday- 
school  to  the  understanding  of  Jewish  antiquities,  of  the 
geography  and  the  manners  and  customs  of  Bible  lands, 
of  ecclesiastical  history,  and  of  Scripture  analysis.3 

With  a  better  understanding  of  the  religious  capabili- 

1  See  American  Sunday  School  Magazine,  and  The  Sunday  School  Visitant, 
for  1828-29. 

2  Sermon  on  Christianity  as  Applied  to  the  Mind  of  a  Child  in  the  Sunday- 
school  (1850),  pp.  38-42. 

8  An  Appeal  to  Ministers  of  the  Gospel  in  Behalf  of  Sunday-schools  (1834), 
p.  28  f. 


ITS  MODERN  REVIVAL.  1 27 

ties  of  childhood,  there  came,  throughout  the  country, 
an  increase  of  wise  care  for  the  children,  in  the  home,  in 
the  school,  and  from  the  pulpit.  Children  were  gathered 
into  the  church-fold  in  numbers  unprecedented.  Bible 
knowledge  was  increased  among  children,  and  by  means 
of  children.  Revivals  of  religion  had  new  frequency  and 
new  power;  and  the  ordinary  ministrations  of  the  pulpit 
reached  intelligent  hearers,  where  before  there  had  been 
only  hearers  who  were  not  sufficiently  instructed  to  com- 
prehend the  forms  of  truth  declared  to  them.  Thus  a 
careful  observer  of  the  progress  of  events,  writing  in  one 
of  the  prominent  English  religious  magazines,  ascribed 
the  peculiar  power  of  the  great  revivals  in  America  from 
1828  to  1832  to  the  superior  methods  of  Bible  study  in 
American  Sunday-schools.  The  progress  of  infidelity  was 
checked,  the  sweep  of  error  was  stayed.  Instead  of  losing 
ground  steadily,  in  its  relative  hold  upon  the  increasing 
population,  evangelical  religion  began  to  make  gain.  So 
it  was  in  the  older  portions  of  our  country.  So  it  was 
in  the  newer  communities,  where  the  pioneer  Sunday- 
school  kept  pace  with  the  extremest  advance  of  immigra- 
tion, reaching  and  teaching  the  children  of  parents  who 
of  themselves  would  never  have  sought  the  place  of 
religious  worship  or  teaching. 

Just  a  few  illustrative  instances  of  the  work  which  has 
been  going  on  in  all  parts  of  our  country  for  the  past 
three-quarters  of  a  century,  may  aid  in  bringing  to  mind 
the  current  of  events  during  that  period.  In  the  con- 
gregation of  the  old  First  Church  in  Norwich  Town, 
Connecticut,  some  seventy  years  since,  a  young  girl  came 
out  from  her  family — the  first  of  its  members  to  do  so 
— and  confessed   her   child -like  trust  in  her   Saviour. 


128  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

Learning  something  of  the  Sunday-school  work  of  Divie 
Bethune,  in  New  York  City,1  she  gathered  a  little  Sunday- 
school  in  the  galleries  of  her  home  church.  The  church 
authorities  deemed  this  a  desecration  of  God's  day  and  of 
God's  house,  and  forbade  herthe  use  of  the  galleries.  She 
withdrew  with  her  little  charge  to  a  neighboring  school- 
house.  Public  sentiment,  including  the  expressed  opinion 
of  her  own  pastor,  secured  her  exclusion  from  that  build- 
ing also.2  She  tried  again  on  the  church  steps;  and  she 
maintained  a  footing  there  until  the  gallery  was  again 
opened  to  her,  and  her  Sunday-school  had  gained  its 
right  to  live.  The  father  and  the  mother  of  that  little 
girl  followed  her  into  the  church -fold.  Every  other 
member  of  her  family  came  there  also.  She  became  the 
wife  of  the  Rev,  Dr.  Myron  Winslow,  as  a  missionary 
worker  in  Ceylon.  Three  of  her  sisters  also  became 
missionaries.  One  of  her  brothers  died  just  as  he  entered 
the  ministry.  Another  brother  went  West  as  a  home 
missionary,  and  gathered  a  church  and  Sunday-school 
there.  A  daughter  of  hers  labored  as  a  missionary's  wife 
in  India,  and  died  leaving  several  sons,  two  of  whom 
afterward  entered  the  ministry.  On  the  occasion  of  the 
fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  organization  of  the  Sunday- 
school  she  had  started,  I  heard  the  pastor  of  her  church 
pay  a  glowing  tribute  to  her  memory,  as  he  read  aloud 
the  names  of  twenty-six  ministers  and  missionaries  who 

1  See  p.  123,  ante. 

2  Nearly  thirty  years  ago  I  was  told,  on  the  testimony  of  an  eye-witness, 
that  when  the  old  pastor  of  the  church  passed  the  school-house  where  this 
young  teacher  had  her  Sunday-school  for  a  season,  he  shook  his  ivory-headed 
cane  toward  the  building,  and  said  in  honest  indignation,  "  You  imps  of  Satan, 
doing  the  Devil's  work!  " 


ITS  MODERN  RE  VIVAL,  1 2Q 

had  already  gone  out  from  that  Sunday-school  as  a 
centre  of  Bible-study  and  of  Christian  influence.  And 
that  incident  is  a  fair  illustration  of  the  work  wrought 
by  the  Sunday-school,  in  the  family,  in  the  church-fold, 
and  in  the  community  at  large,  in  the  field  of  our  older 
churches,  since  the  Sunday-school  obtained  its  new  foot- 
hold in  America. 

Some  years  ago  I  attended  the  one  hundred  and  fiftieth 
anniversary  of  the  First  Church  in  Pomfret,  Connecticut. 
Pomfret  is  one  of  the  many  country  parishes  of  New 
England  which  have  lost  much  of  their  ancient  promi- 
nence, as  local  centres,  by  the  drawing  away  of  population 
and  business  into  the  valleys,  along  the  mill-streams  and 
the  railway  lines.  The  pastor  of  the  Pomfret  church,  in 
his  historical  discourse,  showed  that  during  the  last  half- 
century  of  the  period  commemorated,  the  average  con- 
gregation had  dwindled  from  about  ten  or  twelve  hun- 
dred, to,  say,  a  hundred  and  fifty  or  two  hundred  persons. 
This  would  have  been  a  discouraging  feature  in  the 
church  history,  but  for  the  Sunday-school  addition  to  the 
power  of  that  waning  congregation.  Prior  to  the  settle- 
ment of  the  pastor  who  organized  the  Sunday-school  of 
that  church,  it  would  seem  that  there  had  never  been 
any  children  received  into  full  church-membership  there. 
But  he  turned  his  attention  to  the  little  ones,  and  it  was 
said  at  his  funeral  that  "  the  children  of  the  Sabbath- 
school  loved  him  as  they  did  their  own  eyes."  And 
now,  with  the  Sunday-school  in  continued  operation 
from  his  day  to  the  present,  there  had  been  more  addi- 
tions to  the  membership  of  the  church  in  the  last  fifty 
years  than  in  the  first  one  hundred;  and  this  with  a 
congregation  of  only  one-fifth  or  one-sixth  of  its  former 

9 


1 30  THE  SUNDA  Y- SCHOOL  : 

size.1  As  a  listener  to  that  historical  discourse  said 
dryly :  "  It  would  seem  that  while  fewer  people  went  to 
church  in  Pomfret,  more  went  to  heaven,  after  the  Sunday- 
school  was  started  there."  Nor  is  that  Pomfret  record  a 
better  one  than  we  should  have  a  right  to  look  for  in  a 
church  with,  as  over  against  a  church  without,  a  Sunday- 
school  in  such  a  town  as  Pomfret. 

Within  my  own  day,  and  within  my  own  range  of 
personal  observation,  a  young  layman  went  into  one  of 
the  back  streets  of  the  city  of  Philadelphia,  and  gathered 
a  Sunday-school  of  less  than  thirty  scholars.  He  has 
continued  in  charge  of  that  Sunday-school  to  the  present 
time.  Its  membership  is  now  more  than  two  thousand. 
A  church  which  was  organized  on  the  basis  of  that 
Sunday-school  has  a  membership  of  upwards  of  seven- 
teen hundred,  while  another  flourishing  church  has  been 
established  as  one  of  its  offshoots.  And  similar  instances 
of  church  organization  on  the  basis  of  Sunday-school 
beginnings  could  be  pointed  out  in  every  large  city 
of  America. 

In  our  newer  communities  a  very  large  proportion  of 
all  the  churches  organized  within  the  past  half-century 
have  had  their  beginning  in  a  Sunday-school — without 
the  influence  of  which  a  church  could  neither  have  been 
formed  nor  have  been  continued  in  such  a  neighborhood. 
And  the  magnitude  of  this  pioneer  Sunday-school  work, 
with  its  results  of  church  gathering,  is  one  of  the  marvels 
of  the  century.  Take  a  specimen  incident  from  its  history 
for  an  example.  Some  thirty  years  ago  a  little  girl  was  a 
scholar  in  a  pioneer  Sunday-school,  in  a  new  community 

1  The  150th  Anniversary  of  the  Organization  of  the  First  Church  of  Christ 
in  Pomfret,  Conn.,  (1866,)  pp.  31-33,  55,  61,  62. 


ITS  MODERN  RE  VIVAL.  1 3 1 

in  Illinois.  She  induced  her  father  to  come  with  her  to 
that  Sunday-school.  He,  although  a  man  of  strong  native 
qualities,  was  wholly  uneducated — even  to  the  limited 
extent  of  a  public-school  training.  He  was  lame,  and  he 
had  a  serious  impediment  in  his  speech.  There,  in  the 
Sunday-school,  he  submitted  himself  in  child-like  trust 
to  the  Saviour.  Then,  full  of  love  for  that  Saviour,  and 
of  gratitude  for  the  Sunday-school  agency  which  had 
brought  to  him  a  knowledge  of  the  Saviour,  he,  Stephen 
Paxson,  went  out  and  essayed  the  gathering  of  other 
Sunday-schools  in  needy  neighborhoods  beyond.  He 
became  a  missionary  of  the  American  Sunday-school 
Union,  and  in  that  service  he  gathered  more  than  twelve 
hundred  Sunday-schools  with  an  aggregate  membership 
of  sixty  thousand  scholars  and  teachers.  Scores  of 
churches  were  established  on  the  basis  of  those  Sunday- 
schools;  and  when  he  entered  into  rest  one  of  his  sons 
was  continuing  and  widely  extending  his  work,  which  now 
goes  on  with  increasing  volume  as  the  years  pass  by.1 

In  this  way  it  is  that  the  Sunday-school  has  become 
the  prime  church  agency  for  pioneer  evangelizing,  for 
Bible  teaching,  and  for  the  religious  instruction  and  care 
of  children,  in  every  denomination  of  Protestant  Chris- 
tians in  America,  as  also  among  Roman  Catholics  and 
Jews,  and  even  among  such  an  anomalous  religious  body 
as  the  Mormons.  From  an  aggregate  membership  of  a 
few  hundreds  at  the  beginning  of  this  century,  it  has 
come  to  include,  within  the  evangelical  Protestant  bodies 
alone,  from  eight  to  ten  millions,  or  nearly  one-fifth  of 
the  entire  population  of  the  United  States.     Meanwhile 

l  See  A  Fruitful  Life  (a  memoir  of  Stephen  Paxson). 


1 32  THE  SUNDA  Y- SCHOOL: 

its  influence  is  manifest,  in  the  fact  that  while,  from  1 800 
to  1880,  the  aggregate  population  of  this  country  has 
nearly  ten-folded,  the  number  of  communicants  in  the 
evangelical  Protestant  churches  has  nearly  thirty-folded.1 

Observers  from  other  lands  are,  perhaps,  readier  than 
ourselves  to  recognize  the  peculiar  value  of  the  Sunday- 
school  in  a  country  like  our  own,  without  a  state  church, 
without  the  possibility  of  systematic  religious  instruction 
in  the  public  schools,  and  with  so  large  a  proportion  of 
irreligious  families  coming  to  us  from  across  the  ocean, 
to  swell  our  population  year  by  year.  For  example,  on 
the  occasion  of  our  Centennial  Exposition  in  1 876,  the 
French  Government  had  here  a  Commission,  studying 
the  principles  and  methods  of  primary  instruction  in  the 
United  States.  Two  years  later  a  voluminous  report  on 
the  subject  was  published  by  the  French  Government,  as 
prepared  by  Monsieur  F.  Buisson,  the  president  of  that 
Commission;  and  it  was  evident  that  no  department  of 
primary  instruction  in  this  country  had  impressed  that 
careful  observer  as  more  important  and  noteworthy  than 
that  of  the  Sunday-school.  "The  Sunday-school,"  he 
said,  "  is  not  an  accessory  agency  in  the  normal  economy 
of  American  education;  it  does  not  add  a  superfluity;  it 
is  an  absolute  necessity  for  the  complete  instruction  of 
the  child.  Its  aim  is  to  fill  by  itself  the  complex  mission 
which  elsewhere  is  in  large  measure  assigned  to  the 
family, the  school,  and  the  church."  "All  things,"  again 
he  said,  "  unite  to  assign  to  this  institution  a  grand  part 
in  the  American  life.  Most  diverse  circumstances  co- 
operate to  give  it  an  amplitude,  a  solidity,  and  a  popu- 

1  Dorchester's  Problem  of  Religious  Progress,  p.  545. 


ITS  MODERN  REVIVAL.  133 

larity,  which  are  quite  unique.  For  denominational  lead- 
ers, for  those  whom  above  all  the  interests  of  their  church 
preoccupy,  the  Sunday-school  is  pre-eminently  the  in- 
strument of  propagandism." *  And  this  is  a  fairer  view 
of  the  case  than  that  which  is  held  by  many  who  have 
had  even  better  opportunities  than  M.  Buisson  of  study- 
ing the  Sunday-school  in  its  workings  and  in  its  influence 
here  in  America.  Professor  Emile  de  Laveleye,  of  the 
University  of  Liege,  Belgium,  in  his  work  on  popular 
education,  published  a  few  years  before  M.  Buisson's 
report,  spoke  with  no  less  warmth  of  the  Sunday-school 
system  of  the  United  States,  in  its  power  and  in  its  im- 
portance. "  The  Sunday-school,"  he  said,  "  is  one  of  the 
strongest  foundations  of  the  republican  institutions  of  the 
United  States."2 

Nearly  as  many  teachers  and  scholars  are  in  the  Prot- 
estant Sunday-schools  of  the  United  States  to-day,  as  are 
in  all  the  rest  of  the  Protestant  world  besides,  although 
the  Sunday-school  has  its  recognized  place  and  power  in 
every  quarter  of  the  globe.3     The  circumstances  under 

1  Rapport  sur  V  Instruction  Primaire  a  f  Exposition  Universale  de  Phi/a- 
delphie,  en  1876,  pp.  464-476. 

1  L  'Instruction  du  Peuple,  p.  358. 

s  The  estimated  statistics  of  the  Sunday-school,  in  1887,  as  gathered  by  Mr.  \ 
E.  Payson  Porter,  of  Philadelphia,  show,  in  round  numbers,  for  the  United 
,  one  million  teachers,  and  eight  million  scholars;  and,  for  the  rest  of 
the  world,  one  million  teachers,  and  eight  and  a  half  million  scholars.  If 
these  teachers  received  the  per  diem  allowance  for  these  services  which  was 
deemed  a  fair  one,  both  in  England  and  America,  in  the  early  days  of  the 
Sunday-school,  the  outlay  for  their  work  would  be,  in  the  United  Stall ■ 
alone,  about  $250,000  a  week,  or  $13,000,000  a  year,  and  more  than  twice 
that  sum  for  the  world  as  a  whole.  In  the  light  of  this  fact,  there  is  added 
force  in  the  statement  of  Lord  Hatherly,  at  the  Raikes  Centenary,  that  tin- 
Sunday-school  is  an  evangelizing  instrumentality  by  which  there  are  secured 


134  THE  SUNDA  Y-SCHOOL  : 

which  it  was  developed  in  this  country,  gave  to  the 
Sunday-school  here  a  distinctive  character,  as  an  agency 
both  of  evangelizing  and  of  church-training,  which  makes 
it,  in  a  peculiar  sense,  a  pattern  for  imitation  elsewhere. 
Hence  it  is  that  the  American  Sunday-school  as  an  insti- 
tution has  found  a  foot-hold  in  most  of  the  countries  of 
Europe,  and  is  gaining  in  membership  and  in  confidence 
there,  with  the  best  results  to  the  Church  of  Christ  and 
to  the  community  at  large. 

It  is  now  about  twenty -five  years  since  Mr.  Albert 
Woodruff,  a  Christian  layman  of  Brooklyn,  New  York, 
while  a  traveler  in  Germany,  was  moved  to  undertake  the 
starting  of  a  Sunday-school  on  the  American  plan,  with 
voluntary  teaching  by  laymen  and  women,  in  the  German 
capital.  He  saw  that  with  all  that  was  done  for  the  reli- 
gious instruction  of  German  children,  through  the  family, 
through  the  parochial  school,  as  a  part  of  the  system  of 
public  education,  and  through  perfunctory  catechetical 
teaching  in  the  churches,  there  was  still  a  sad  lack  of 
popular  Bible -study  as  Bible -study,  and  of  voluntary 
Bible  teaching  by  Christian  laymen  and  women ;  and  that 
the  consequence  of  this  lack  showed  itself  there,  as  it 
shows  itself  under  like  circumstances  everywhere,  in  the 
growth  of  skepticism  and  error  and  unbelief  throughout 
the  community — even  in  the  higher  institutions  of  learn- 
ing. From  that  humble  beginning  the  foreign  Sunday- 
school  work  of  America  has  come  to  be  no  mean  factor 
in  the  evangelizing  activities  and  in  the  edifying  labors 

"  visiting  agents,  and  good  agents,  and  well-instructed  agents,  with  a  mini- 
mum of  expense  and  a  maximum  of  benefits."  Who  would  think  of  com- 
plaining of  the  trifling  expense  to  the  churches  of  the  Sunday-school  of  to-day, 
in  view  of  the  priceless  value  of  its  unpaid  workers  ? 


ITS  MODERN  RE  VIVAL.  1 3  5 

of  the  world  at  large.  The  London  Sunday-school  Union 
has,  from  the  first,  co-operated  heartily  with  American 
workers  in  this  new  movement.1  And  now,  in  Germany 
alone,  there  are  some  three  thousand  Sunday-schools, 
comprising,  say,  thirty  thousand  teachers  and  three  hun- 
dred thousand  scholars.  "  The  work  is  now  spread  all 
over  Germany,"  writes  one  of  its  more  prominent  pro- 
moters ;  "and  all  clergymen  who  are  not  rationalists  have 
Sunday-schools.  Even  the  latter  have  opened  children's 
divine  services,  without  classes;  [mainly]  because  they 
cannot  find  teachers  [in  sufficient  number]  who,  out  of 
love  for  Jesus,  would  devote  themselves  to  this  work." 

Not  only  in  Germany,  but  in  wellnigh  every  country 
of  continental  Europe,  the  modern  Sunday-school  has 
been  making  steady  progress  within  the  past  quarter  of 
a  century,  from  the  impulse  and  under  the  watchful  over- 
sight of  Christian  workers,  banded  together,  in  the  United 
States  and  in  England,  for  the  purpose  of  promoting  the 
extension  and  improvement  of  this  means  of  evangeliza- 
tion and  of  religious  training.  Meanwhile,  in  every  for- 
eign field  where  American  or  English  missionaries  are 
at  work,  the  Sunday-school  is  growing  in  prominence 
as  an  agency  of  church  extension  and  of  church  upbuild- 
ing. And  thus,  in  a  truer  sense  than  ever  before,  the  dis- 
ciples of  our  Lord  are  laboring,  all  the  world  over,  in 

1  At  the  Raikes  Centenary,  in  London,  in  June,  1880,  Mr.  A.  Benham, 
chairman  of  the  Continental  Committee  of  the  London  Sunday  School  Union, 
said  on  this  point :  "  '  Honor  to  whom  honor '  is  an  apostolic  injunction,  and 
right  cheerfully  do  we  accord  to  our  highly  esteemed  friend  and  fellow-worker, 
Mr.  Albert  Woodruff,  of  Brooklyn,  the  honor  of  having  been  the  pioneer  of 
this  great  work.  By  him  was  laid  the  foundation  on  which  has  been  erected 
the  superstructure ;  and  for  what  has  been  done  up  to  the  present  time  we 
th?nV  God,  who  has,  in  his  providence,  vouchsafed  so  rich  a  blessing  on  the 


136  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

accordance  with  the  requirements  of  his  pre-ascension 
injunction:    "Go,  make  scholars  of  all  nations." 

Nor  has  the  progress  of  the  Sunday-school  here  in 
America  been  less  marked  and  important  in  the  measure 
and  character  of  its  instruction  than  in  the  growing 
magnitude  of  its  numbers.  From  an  unintelligent  and 
unrestricted  memorizing  of  Bible  verses  as  the  highest 
attainment  of  its  earliest  Bible-study,  it  passed,  as  did  the 
Sunday-school  in  Great  Britain,  to  the  special  study  of 
limited  lessons  from  the  Bible  text,  week  by  week;  and 
finally  to  the  systematic  study  of  the  entire  Bible  as 
the  Bible,  in  a  series  of  carefully  selected  lessons  for  a 
continuous  seven  years'  course,  which  is  common  to 
Sunday-schools  generally,  under  the  designation  of  the 
International  Lesson  Course.  And  now,  under  the  influ- 
ence of  this  course  of  instruction,  the  best  and  freshest 
work  of  the  best  and  strongest  Bible  scholars  on  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic  is  made  available  as  a  help  to  the 
ordinary  study  of  the  average  teacher  in  his  preparation 
for  the  weekly  teaching  of  his  scholars. 

The  International  lessons  were  formally  inaugurated 
at  the  beginning  of  1873,  under  a  recommendation  from 
a  purely  voluntary  and  an  undenominational  assemblage 
of  Sunday-school  workers,  in  a  national  convention  for 
the  United  States;  that  recommendation  being  subse- 
quently approved  by  Sunday-school  workers  in  Canada 
and  in  England.1     At  the  start,  not  a  single  denomination 

labors  already  expended  on  this  work "  (  The  Sunday  School  Chronicle,  for 
July  3,  1880,  p.  368).  The  American  workers  in  this  movement  are  associated 
under  the  designation  of  The  Foreign  Sunday  School  Association,  with  its  head- 
quarters at  the  home  of  Mr.  Woodruff,  130  State  Street,  Brooklyn,  New  York. 

*  The  best  available  sketch  of  the  movement  which  resulted  in  the  Inter- 


ITS  MODERN  RE VIVAL.  1 3; 

was,  as  a  denomination,  in  favor  of  the  International 
lesson  plan.  Wellnigh  every  great  religious  publishing 
house  was  opposed  to  it;  nor  could  any  one  of  those 
houses  adopt  it  without  rendering  useless  valuable  plates 
and  copyrights  of  series  of  lesson-helps.  On  all  sides 
there  was  more  or  less  of  reluctance  to  accept  the  new 
system  in  all  its  essential  features,  and  from  some  quarters 
the  opposition  to  it  was  outspoken  and  prolonged.  Hence 
that  system  secured  an  established  position  only  through 
its  tested  merits,  and  in  response  to  a  popular  conviction 
and  demand  which  could  not  be  overborne,  nor  success- 
fully resisted. 

One  of  the  chief  points  in  discussion  at  the  time  of  the 
adoption  of  this  lesson  system,  and  which  is  still  a  point 
in  its  criticism,  concerns  the  wiser  method  of  selecting 
passages  from  the  Bible,  in  order  to  its  thorough  and 
systematic  study.  Four  plans  had,  severally,  their  earnest 
and  conscientious  advocates.  First,  a  system  of  Bible 
doctrines,  as  indicated  by  a  common  creed  of  evangelical 
Christians,  or  as  outlined  in  the  principal  catechisms  of 
the  churches,  was  preferred  by  many  as  a  basis  of  sound 
Bible  teaching.  Second,  personal  duties,  God-ward  and 
man-ward,  were  thought  by  not  a  few  to  be  the  most 
important  basis  of  practical  Bible  teaching.  Third,  the  life 
of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  in  prophecy  and  in  history, 
especially  as  its  main  features  are  indicated  in  the  seasons 
of  the  Church  year,  was  deemed  by  a  multitude  the 
fitting  basis  of  reverent  Bible  teaching.  Fourth,  the  Bible\ 
itself  as  a  book,  as  the  Book  of  books,  with  its  exhibit  J 
of  doctrines,  and  of  duties,  and  of  the  life  of  Christ,  was/ 

national  lesson  plan  is  Gilbert's  The  Lesson  System  ;  the  Story  of  its  Cbn^in 
and  Inauguration. 


138  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL: 

more  generally  looked  upon  as  pre-eminently  the  basis  of 
systematic  Bible  teaching;  and  this  latter  plan  it  was  that 
was  adopted  as  the  plan  of  the  International  lesson  system. 

Steadily  this  system  of  Bible-study  has  won  its  way  in 
the  world.  Almost  without  exception  the  great  denomi- 
national publishing  houses  have  made  its  lessons  the 
basis  of  their  course  of  instruction.  While  the  Episco- 
palians have  adopted  it  less  generally  than  any  other 
portion  of  the  Protestant  community,  it  is  used  in  many 
of  their  Sunday-schools,  and  by  a  large  proportion  of  the 
Sunday-schools  of  other  Protestant  Christians  in  the 
United  States  and  abroad,  including  the  foreign  mis- 
sionary stations  of  the  world.  While  it  is  not  easy  to 
ascertain  the  number  of  persons  who  are  using  these 
lessons  regularly,  it  can  safely  be  said  that  at  least  from 
five  to  seven  millions  are  now  engaged,  week  by  week, 
in  the  study  of  the  same  passage  from  God's  Word,  in 
accordance  with  the  plan  of  the  International  lesson 
course.  And  so  it  has  come  to  pass  that  at  the  very 
time  when  the  Bible  as  a  single  whole  is  most  severely 
assailed  by  its  opponents  from  without  the  Christian  fold, 
and  most  seriously  questioned  by  its  critics  from  within 
that  fold,  a  larger  number  of  persons  than  were  ever  before 
engaged  in  its  careful  study  are  becoming  intelligently 
acquainted  with  its  contents  as  the  inspired  record  of  a 
revelation  from  God. 

A  vast  body  of  biblical  literature  has  been  created  to 
meet  the  demands  of  the  new  army  of  Bible  students.  So 
long  as  there  was  no  one  phase  of  biblical  truth  which 
centred  the  interest  of  the  community  generally  at  any 
given  period,  there  was  no  justification  in  publishing,  in 
periodical  or  in  book  form,  special  helps  to  the  elucida- 


ITS  MODERN  RE  VIVAL.  1 39 

tion  of  any  one  phase  above  another  of  such  truth.  But 
when  that  centring  of  popular  interest  was  secured  through 
the  International  lesson  course,  an  immense  constituency 
was  already  assured  to  any  publication  in  the  line  of  the 
studies  of  that  course.  Authors  and  publishers  alike  were 
prompt  to  recognize  this  new  state  of  things,  and  they 
were  aroused  and  stimulated  to  its  meeting.  Fresh  aids 
to  Bible-study  were  multiplied,  and  the  demand  for  them 
increased  even  faster  than  their  supplies.  Commentaries, 
cyclopedias,  works  of  biblical  research,  were  called  for 
to  an  extent  before  undreamed  of.  Important  works  by 
European  specialists  which  would  not  have  been  thought 
of  for  popular  demand  in  America,  were  now  issued  on 
this  side  of  the  water  in  rival  editions ;  and  the  library  of 
the  average  country  clergyman,  or  of  the  more  intelligent 
lay  teacher,  can  now  be  supplied  with  volumes  which 
otherwise  could  have  found  a  place  only  in  the  better 
furnished  of  our  city  libraries. 

The  foremost  scholars  of  the  foremost  universities  of  the 
world  have  been  summoned  to  bear  a  part  in  the  elucida- 
tion or  the  illustration  or  the  application  of  the  current 
lesson  themes.  Thus,  for  a  single  example,  the  honored 
President  of  Yale  University  is  now,  and  for  some  time 
has  been,  guiding  critically  the  New  Testament  studies  of 
more  than  a  hundred  thousand  Sunday-school  teachers, 
week  by  week,  in  the  line  of  these  International  lessons. 
For  several  years  before  him,  the  venerable  ex-President 
Woolsey  led  similarly  in  this  line  of  guidance ;  while  the 
universities  of  Oxford  and  of  Leipsic  and  of  Neufchatel 
from  over  the  ocean,  have  contributed  of  their  scholarship 
to  swell  the  current  of  Bible  learning  for  the  regular  sup- 
ply of  teachers  in  our  American  Sunday-schools. 


140  THE  SUNDA  Y-SCHOOL: 

Popular  magazines  and  secular  newspapers  now  feel 
the  necessity  of  recognizing  the  field  and  scope  of  the 
International  lessons  in  the  catalogue  of  their  ordinary  or 
of  their  special  attractions.  The  very  atmosphere  of  the 
Christian  community  is  surcharged  with  the  spirit  of  these, 
lessons,  through  their  united  study  and  teaching.  Biblical 
theology  as  biblical  theology  has  a  new  and  a  firmer  hold 
upon  the  minds  and  hearts  of  teachers  and  of  taught.  And 
the  lines  of  division  between  schools  of  dogmatists,  and 
between  denominations  of  believers,  grow  dimmer  in  the 
brighter  glow  of  the  great  truths  of  the  Bible  which  Bible 
students  rejoice  in  together,  as  they  sit  side  by  side  under 
the  teachings  of  their  common  Redeemer.1 

Many  a  young  layman,  in  one  of  our  better  conducted 
American  Sunday-schools,  trained  under  the  influence  of 
this  system  of  International  lesson  study,  is  to-day  more 
familiar  with  the  Bible  as  the  Bible,  than  was  the  average 
young  minister  of  a  generation  or  so  ago.  One  of  the 
more  prominent  pastors  in  the  United  States,  himself  not 
yet  past  middle  life,  said  to  me,  not  long  ago,  as  he  spoke 
of  a  young  man,  still  under  eighteen  years  of  age,  who 
had  received  his  chief  learning  in  Bible  knowledge  under 
the  influence  of  the  International  lessons,  and  who  was 
•now  to  enter  college :  "  He  knows  more  of  the  Bible, 
when  he  enters  college,  than  I  knew  of  it  when  I  left  the 
theological  seminary;  for  he  has  had  advantages  in  Bible- 
study  such  as  we  knew  nothing  of  in  Sunday-school,  in 
college,  or  in  the  seminary,  in  my  days  there."  Yet  that 
pastor  was  the  son  of  a  New  England  clergyman,  a  gradu- 

1  It  is  a  noteworthy  fact  that  the  increased  desire  for  Christian  union,  and 
the  increase  of  apparent  readiness  for  its  attainment,  has  corresponded  in  its 
growth  and  progress  with  the  spread  of  this  system  of  common  Bible-study. 


ITS  MODERN  REVIVAL.  141 

ate  of  one  of  the  choicest  Christian  colleges  of  New 
England,  and  an  alumnus  of  one  of  the  more  prominent 
theological  seminaries  outside  of  New  England.  More- 
over, it  was  because  he  had  kept  himself  abreast  of  the 
modern  Sunday-school  movement,  with  its  mighty  sway 
of  systematic  Bible-study,  and  knew  its  practical  power, 
that  he  spoke  as  he  did  of  those  facts  with  which  many 
another  pastor  might  be  familiar,  but  is  not 

It  is  even  now  recognized  as  a  serious  question,  whether 
a  young  man  who  is  in  preparation  for  the  ministry  can 
afford  to  be  outside  of  the  direct  influence  of  this  Bible- 
studying  movement  during  his  undergraduate  years  in 
college  and  in  seminary ;  and  whether  the  provisions  in 
these  schools  of  preparation  are  yet  such  as  to  send  from 
them  into  the  ministry  men  furnished  with  Bible  knowl- 
edge, and  with  a  knowledge  of  methods  of  Bible  teaching, 
in  that  measure  which  will  bring  them  abreast,  at  the  start, 
of  the  Bible  students  whom  they  are  likely  to  find,  in  the 
communities  to  which  they  go,  as  the  product  of  the 
agencies  and  influences  now  operative  outside  of  the  pre- 
paratory schools.  And  it  is  in  the  line  of  the  solving  of 
this  question  that  plans  for  Bible-study  in  the  college 
curriculum  are  being  discussed  with  earnestness  among 
instructors  in  this  University,  and  beyond  it,1  and  that 
the  Faculty  of  Yale  Divinity  School  has  shown  its  readi- 


1  There  was  never  a  time  when  the  systematic  study  of  the  English  Bible 
had  as  large  prominence  as  to-day,  among  the  better  class  of  students  in 
American  colleges  generally.  Such  a  gathering  as  the  "  College  Students* 
Summer  School  and  Encampment  for  Bible  Study,"  under  the  direction  of 
Mr.  Moody,  at  Northficld,  Massachusetts,  (where  from  three  hundred  to 
six  hundred  of  the  brighter  students  of  the  foremost  American  colleges  pass 
several  weeks  in  this  occupation,  year  by  year,)  would  have  been  an  impos- 
sibility twenty  years  ago,  or  earlier. 


142  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 

ness,  by  inviting  this  course  of  lectures,  to  make  available 
to  its  students  whatever  facts  or  suggestions  may  be 
brought  to  bear  upon  it  out  of  the  experiences  or  the 
study  of  any  one  who  has  given  it  special  attention. 

And  this  is  the  record  and  the  aspect  of  the  modern 
Sunday-school  movement.  In  the  latter  third  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  Bible-study  and  Bible  teaching  were 
a  minor  factor  in  the  activities  of  the  Christian  Church, 
and  the  tide  of  vital  godliness  was  at  a  very  low  ebb  on 
the  shores  of  all  Christendom.  In  the  latter  third  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  Bible-study  and  Bible  teaching  have 
a  prominence  never  before  known  in  the  world's  history, 
and  vital  godliness  is  shown  and  felt  with  unprecedented 
potency  in  the  life  and  progress  of  mankind.  This  change 
is  due  to  God's  blessing  on  the  revival  and  expansion  of 
the  church  Bible-school  as  his  chosen  agency  for  Chris- 
tian evangelizing  and  Christian  training. 


UNIVERSr.  7 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
BERKELEY 

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